Ductwork Replacement Cost Calculator
Replacing the ductwork in a 2,000 square foot house costs about $6,851 in flexible duct and $12,318 in rigid sheet metal. The figure that matters more is the other one: sealing what is already there is $2,036, or 30% of a full replacement, and in a great many houses it fixes most of what a replacement would. Replacing is for ducts that are crushed, disconnected or undersized — not for ducts that are old.
Estimate the cost for your home
Estimated cost for the ductwork
$7,152
typical · range $5,410 to $8,893 · 332 ft of duct · 14 supply outlets · 61.1 trade hours
Labour priced at national wages. Enter a ZIP code to price it for your area. 51% of this figure comes from modelled material prices — each line shows its own uncertainty.
Priced from bls.gov Aug 2026how every line is sourced
The one input that changes the answer for you.
Trunks, branches, boots, registers and returns. Justified when the ducts are crushed, disconnected, contaminated, insulated with something that has failed, or simply too small for the equipment — not because they are old. In a finished house this is the option that involves opening ceilings, and that is priced separately.
Hardest of the three, and the one where the ducts have usually suffered most: an uninsulated attic runs well above outdoor temperature in summer, so a supply duct up there is losing exactly when the system is working hardest. It is also where sagging flex duct quietly strangles airflow.
Cheap, fast and by far the most common in new construction. It is also the one that goes wrong quietly: pulled loose it sags, and a sagging flex run has far more resistance than the same length pulled taut. Fitted properly it is perfectly good; fitted carelessly it is the reason a correctly sized system underperforms.
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The figure above is already calculated. Each step just makes it more yours, and you can stop at any of them.
There are three answers here, and the cheapest is rarely offered
Same house, same crew, same access. Only the scope of the work changes.
| What gets done | Duct replaced | Trade hours | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seal what is there and test it | — | 21.6 | $2,142 |
| Replace the trunk lines, keep the branches | 80 ft | 21.6 | $3,086 |
| Replace the whole duct system | 332 ft | 61.1 | $7,152 |
Sealing costs 30% of a full replacement on this house, and in a great many homes it recovers most of what was being lost. Replacing is justified when the ducts are crushed, disconnected, contaminated or genuinely too small for the equipment — not because they are old. ⚠️ Worth naming the obvious: whoever is telling you which of these three you need earns roughly ten times more from the bottom row than the top one. That does not make anyone dishonest, and it does explain why the cheap answer so rarely comes up on its own. Ask for it by name.
Flexible duct or rigid sheet metal
Sheet metal comes to $12,931 against $7,152 in flexible duct — 181%, and 124.7 trade hours against 61.1. Most of the difference is labour, because rigid duct is cut, folded and hung rather than unrolled. What it buys is a duct that keeps its shape for the life of the house and can be cleaned properly. Flexible duct is not a bad product; it is a product that depends entirely on whoever pulled it having pulled it taut. A sagging flex run has several times the resistance of the same length installed properly, and nobody ever sees it.
| Line item | Qty | Cost | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Insulated flexible duct and fittingslinear feet replaced, in flexible duct | 332linear ft | $1,062–$2,490 | estimated±40% |
| Fabricating, hanging and connecting ductfeet replaced × hours per foot for the material × access factor | 43.3hour | $2,498–$2,684 | sourced |
| Supply and return plenums1 when trunk lines are replaced | 1each | $160–$420 | estimated±45% |
| Boots and takeoffs at each outletone per supply outlet, on a full replacement | 14each | $252–$644 | estimated±44% |
| Registers, diffusers and return grillessupply outlets plus returns, when the grilles are renewed | 15each | $210–$720 | estimated±55% |
| Adding a return where there is noneone per storey, when returns are added | 1each | $120–$320 | estimated±45% |
| Cutting in and connecting returns3.5 hours per return × access factor | 5.1hour | $294–$316 | sourced |
| Stripping out and disposing of the old ducts20% of the install hours, at the labourer wage | 8.7hour | $383–$411 | sourced |
| Skip and tipping fee1 when the old ducts are taken away | 1each | $120–$340 | estimated±48% |
| Airflow measurement and balancing4 hours after a replacement, 2 after sealing | 4hour | $231–$248 | sourced |
| Mechanical permit and inspection1 when a replacement is permitted | 1each | $80–$300 | estimated±58% |
| Total | $5,410–$8,893 | ±24% |
Where these numbers come from
- Three answers, and an incentive worth naming
- Sealing $2,036, trunk lines only $2,979, full replacement $6,851. Same house, same crew, same access — only the scope changes. The middle option is the one almost nobody hears about and it is often the right one: the main supply and return trunks carry every cubic foot of air and are where undersizing does the most damage, while the branch runs to individual rooms are frequently fine. ⚠️ And the thing nobody says out loud: whoever advises you on which row you need earns roughly 3 times more from the bottom one than the top one. It is not an accusation, it is a reason to ask for the cheap option by name and to insist on a pressure test before deciding.
- Where the money actually goes
- 61.1 trade hours on this job against $3 per square foot of house. Duct is not expensive; getting to it is. The same full replacement is $5,917 where the ducts hang from an open basement ceiling and $6,851 in an attic — nothing about the product changed, only how long somebody spends on their knees. That is also why this is one of the jobs where the regional wage index matters most: on a bill that is mostly labour, the metro area is doing more work in the figure than any material choice.
- Flexible or rigid, and the honest version of that argument
- $12,318 in sheet metal against $6,851 in flexible duct — 180%, and 124.7 trade hours against 61.1. Most of the gap is labour, because rigid duct is cut, folded and hung rather than unrolled. Flexible duct is not a bad product and the trade argument against it is usually overstated. What is true is that it depends entirely on whoever installed it having pulled it taut: a sagging flex run has several times the resistance of the same length done properly, it is invisible above a ceiling, and nobody ever goes back to look.
- The quantities, and what they are not
- This model estimates 80 feet of trunk, 14 supply outlets and 252 feet of branch duct for a 2,000 square foot single-storey house. ⚠️ Those come from trade rules of thumb — one outlet per 150 square feet, one foot of trunk per 25 square feet of floor, branches averaging 18 feet — and they are for estimating a quantity, not for designing a system. The professional standard for sizing ducts is licensed material this site does not reproduce or derive from. A two-storey house at 2,800 square feet comes out at $9,735 on the same basis.
- Why a heat pump changes the answer
- A furnace delivers hot air; a heat pump delivers warm air, so it has to move a great deal more of it to carry the same heat, and it does so continuously rather than in bursts. Ducts that ran a furnace adequately for twenty years can become the limiting factor behind a heat pump. The symptom is not an error code — it is that the house never quite gets there and the expensive resistance backup runs more than it should, which shows up as a January electricity bill nobody connects to a duct. If you are changing to a heat pump, this is the moment to have the ducts measured rather than assumed.
- Two things to know before anything is disturbed
- ⚠️ Duct tape, joint compound and flue cement in houses from before the eighties can contain asbestos. It is tested rather than disturbed, abatement is licensed work, and it is excluded from every figure here. Second, and related to what ducts are connected to: a return duct that leaks in a garage or a basement with a fuel-burning appliance can pull combustion products into the house. CDC, Carbon Monoxide Poisoning Basics covers what that means for a household. It is one of the less obvious reasons sealing the return side is worth more than sealing the supply side. Retrieved 2026-08-23.
- Labour rates by area, and the coverage caveat
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, for sheet metal workers and construction labourers, adjusted to your metropolitan area. Retrieved 2026-08-20. Benefit load from BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation. On a job that is this heavily labour, the wage is doing most of the work in the figure — which is the strong half of our model, because the regional multiplier is a ratio and cancels much of the contractor margin. The hours are the weak half and they are our estimate. EPA’s guidance on ducts is worth reading alongside this: EPA, Should You Have the Air Ducts in Your Home Cleaned?, retrieved 2026-08-23.
- Material prices
- Modelled estimates, not sourced prices. No public, machine-readable source of US residential material prices exists, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. Each line carries its own uncertainty band. How we estimate them.
Contractor overhead and profit applied at 33–43% over direct cost. Data last reviewed 2026-08-23.
What this figure does not include
- Opening and repairing finished ceilings and walls
- In a house with no accessible route to the ducts, the drywall work is a large share of the job and depends entirely on the route. It cannot be estimated from floor area, so it is left out and said so rather than averaged in.
- Asbestos testing and abatement
- Duct tape, joint compound and flue cement from before the eighties can contain it. Testing comes first, abatement is licensed work, and neither is priced here.
- A Manual D duct design
- Sizing ducts properly is a calculation, not a rule of thumb, and the professional standard for it is licensed material this site does not reproduce. What is priced here is installing ducts, not designing them.
- Heating and cooling equipment
- This is the ductwork alone. The furnace, air conditioner or heat pump that feeds it is priced on its own page.
- Duct cleaning
- A different job done by different people with different equipment, and one worth reading about before buying. Priced on our duct cleaning page.
Questions people actually ask
How much does it cost to replace ductwork in a 2000 sq ft house?
About $6,851 in Atlanta for a full replacement in flexible duct in an attic — roughly 332 feet of duct and 14 supply outlets, ranging $5,121 to $8,582. In rigid sheet metal the same job is $12,318. But the number most people should see first is the other one: sealing what is already there costs $2,036, which is 30% of the full job, and in many houses it recovers most of what was being lost. Replacing trunk lines only sits between them at $2,979.
Is it expensive to replace ductwork?
Yes, relative to the equipment it serves: $6,851 here against roughly what a furnace costs. It is expensive because it is almost all labour in awkward places — 61.1 trade hours on this job, done in an attic or on your back in a crawl space, and the material itself is a minority of the bill. That is also why the access question moves the figure so much: the same replacement is $5,917 where the ducts hang from an open basement ceiling. It is not expensive because duct is expensive.
Is it worth it to replace ductwork?
Only for a specific reason, and "they are old" is not one. It is worth it when the ducts are crushed, disconnected, contaminated with something that cannot be cleaned out, insulated with material that has failed, or genuinely too small for the equipment. It is not worth it when the real problem is leakage, which is far commoner — that is what sealing fixes, for $2,036 instead of $6,851. One honest warning about the advice you will get: whoever is telling you which of the two you need earns several times more from the replacement. That does not make anyone dishonest and it does explain why the cheap answer rarely comes up unprompted.
What is the $5000 rule for HVAC?
Age of the equipment in years multiplied by the repair quote; over 5,000 means replace rather than repair. It is a trade rule of thumb with no official standing, and — this is the part worth knowing on this page — it is about the equipment, not the ducts. Ducts have no equivalent, because they do not fail the way a compressor fails: they leak, they sag, they get crushed, and none of that produces a repair quote to multiply by anything. The useful test for ductwork is different: have the system pressure-tested, find out how much air is being lost, and then decide between $2,036 and $6,851 with a measurement rather than an opinion.
Taken from Google’s “people also ask” results for this search on 23 August 2026, not invented.
Other cost calculators
The first of these are the jobs closest to this one — the ones that turn up in the same quote, or instead of it.
- Duct cleaning cost
Prices the job by the opening and puts the EPA’s own published position on the service, and on the biocides sold with it, right beside the figure.
- HVAC replacement cost
Prices a whole system replaced in one visit and measures, against our own furnace and air conditioner models, what doing both halves together really saves.
- Water heater replacement cost
Prices a tank, heat pump or tankless replacement for your area, and itemises the code-driven extras that turn a simple swap into an expensive one.
- The full ductwork replacement cost dataset
Every unit price, every quantity rule and the reasoning behind each estimate, as a plain table.
- How we calculate
The formula, the sources, and an honest account of which parts of the model are weak.