WWII Aircraft quality aluminum sheet metal in your Home?

The furnace ducting pictured is from about 1951-2, about 60-70 years old. It’s all Air-Craft high-grade aluminum made from left-overs and scraped war-time manufacturing supplies on hand after WWII and Korean Wars typically from here in the Milwaukee and SE Wisconsin area. The quality of the material was not available to be purchased by the public and the cost-prohibitive.

The sheet-metal tradesperson installing this material has bent turned seams that are perfect as well at fittings and ends with no air-leaks, just about perfect as well, no screws holding it together. Curved radius turns at very carefully calculated, laying out in a pattern and created by the sheet metal tradesperson, a lost art. The aluminum material is still shiny and not corroded or even an aged patina on it.

These aluminum duct installations are often seen at the same time the Octopus coal burner was removed, which used huge sized ducting. The new smaller ducting was downsized to accommodate the “new” forced-air fan pushing the air through the home [a new modern upgrade idea] versus coal with it being so very hot, heat would rise through convection and cool and then drop to the large return ducts in the floor when colder, with no fan. All rather efficient in warming the home, and maybe too warm. There was no need for much insulation as coal, wood and oil were cheap, one had to be more concerned about being too hot than not. Not efficient in energy use at 40-50% tops. Generally regulation of heat was more a matter of opening the window in a room you were in.

If you are buying or selling an older home and need a home inspector who specializes in historic and older homes, call us today.