Duct repair, duct replacement, and indoor air quality service in Tampa, FL.
Half the "my AC can't keep up" calls we get are ductwork — crushed flex runs, disconnected joints, ducts leaking 20-30% of your cooled air into the attic. The system gets blamed, but the system was never the problem. Ductwork is the hidden half of your HVAC, and in Tampa's older homes it's often never been looked at since the house was built.
Mendoza Heating and Air handles ductwork repair, replacement, and sealing — plus indoor air quality: filtration and humidity control. If some rooms won't cool, your bills keep climbing, or the house is always dusty, the ducts are the first place we look. For UV lights, see our indoor air quality page.
And here's the number that surprises people: the Department of Energy estimates the average home loses 20-30% of conditioned air to duct leakage. Sealing that up is often the highest-ROI comfort fix there is — cheaper than a new system, felt immediately.
It starts with a visit: we inspect accessible ductwork — attic, crawlspace, closets — looking for crushed flex, disconnected joints, deteriorated insulation, and undersized runs. We check airflow at the registers room by room, because the pattern of which rooms suffer tells us where the problem lives.
You'll get a straight report: what's wrong, where, and what it costs to fix — from targeted repairs (reconnecting and sealing specific runs) to partial replacement to a full duct overhaul. Most duct jobs take a day; full replacements on larger homes can run two.
For UV lights and what's in your air, see our indoor air quality page — ductwork and air treatment are different jobs, and we'll tell you honestly which one your home needs.
“Half the “my AC can’t keep up” calls I see are ductwork — crushed, leaking, undersized. Fix the ducts and the system you already own finally does its job.”
Your ducts touch every cubic foot of air in the house. Here's what goes wrong with them.
The #1 duct problem in Tampa attics. Flex duct gets stepped on, kinked around obstacles, or just sags between supports until airflow chokes to a trickle. The room at the end of that run never cools right, and no thermostat setting fixes it. We find the restriction, repair or replace the run, and support it properly so it doesn't happen again.
Duct joints separate over time — vibration, age, bad original connections. Every disconnected joint dumps your expensive cooled air straight into the attic. We reconnect, seal with mastic (not just tape — tape fails in attic heat), and insulate. Sealing alone often drops bills 10-20%.
Some homes were built with ducts too small for the system — or the system got upsized over the years while the ducts stayed the same. Undersized ducts mean high static pressure, weak airflow, noise, and a system working itself to death. This one's a redesign conversation, not a patch job, and we'll show you the measurements.
If you're dusting constantly with a clean filter, the dust is coming from somewhere — usually leaky return ducts pulling attic air (and attic dust, insulation fibers, and whatever else) straight into the system. Sealing the returns fixes the dust and the air quality in one move.
Musty supply air usually means microbial growth on the indoor coil or in the drain pan — Tampa humidity feeds it year-round. A proper coil cleaning handles what's already there. If the ducts themselves are contaminated, we'll tell you honestly whether cleaning or replacement is the answer.
Tampa air is wet, and an oversized AC that short-cycles never runs long enough to dehumidify — so the house feels clammy at 74 degrees. Sometimes the fix is equipment sizing; sometimes it's a whole-home dehumidifier; sometimes it's just duct sealing stopping humid attic air from infiltrating. We diagnose which one before recommending anything.
These three problems show up on almost every duct job we run. Here’s what each one does to your home and your bill.
Crushed or kinked flex duct, undersized runs, blocked registers, or a choked filter all starve rooms of air. The system runs longer trying to satisfy the thermostat, rooms never reach temperature, and the extra runtime wears parts faster. Weak airflow at a register is almost never a thermostat problem — it’s a duct problem, and we trace the run to find it.
One room baking while the rest of the house is fine usually means one bad run — crushed, disconnected, undersized, or just badly balanced. The result is thermostat wars: you overcool the whole house trying to fix one room, which wastes energy and still leaves the hot room uncomfortable. Fix the run and the whole house settles down.
Leaks dump your paid-for cooled air into the attic — the Department of Energy estimates the average home loses 20–30% this way. Supply leaks waste energy and leave rooms short of air. Return leaks are worse: they pull hot, humid, dusty attic air straight into the system, which drives up humidity, clogs filters faster, and spreads attic dust through the house. Disconnected runs dump entire rooms’ worth of air into the attic. Left alone, leaks mean higher bills, a system that never shuts off, and equipment that ages years early.
The honest pricing part: duct work is priced by what we find, and we show you photos of everything before quoting. A targeted repair might be a few hundred; a full replacement is a real project and we'll itemize it. What we won't do is sell you a full replacement when sealing and repairs would solve it — the photos keep everyone honest.
The classic signs: some rooms never cool right, bills climbing with no change in use, dust everywhere despite a clean filter, or the system runs constantly but the house won't get comfortable. A duct assessment — we inspect accessible ducts and check airflow room by room — gives you the definitive answer.
The Department of Energy estimates 20-30% for the average home. That's nearly a third of what you pay to cool, dumped into the attic. Sealing is often the highest-ROI comfort fix available — cheaper than a new system, felt immediately.
Sometimes — but it's oversold as a cure-all. If your ducts are crushed, disconnected, or undersized, cleaning doesn't fix any of that. We assess first: if the ducts are sound and just dirty, cleaning helps. If they're damaged, we'll show you and talk repair instead of selling you a cleaning you don't need.
Targeted repairs: usually a day. Partial replacement: a day. Full duct replacement on a larger home: up to two days. We'll give you the exact timeline with the quote — and we clean up the attic when we're done.
Often, yes. A single hot room is usually a single bad run — crushed, kinked, disconnected, or undersized. We trace that run, fix it, and verify airflow at the register before we leave. No need to redo the whole system for one room.
Yes — we diagnose the cause first, because the fix depends on it. Oversized short-cycling equipment, leaky ducts pulling in humid attic air, or just Tampa being Tampa: each has a different answer, from duct sealing to a whole-home dehumidifier. We don't guess.
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