Homeowners who are conscious of their monthly energy spending can take just a few simple steps to keep their bills reasonable. Keeping doors and windows shut while running the heater or air conditioner is an important part of energy efficiency, as is sealing any leaks around the home and weatherization. But all this sealing and reinforcing can lead to some consequences for your family\u2019s health.<\/p>\n
When your home is sealed up tightly, your air conditioning and heating system won\u2019t have to work as hard to get your home to a desirable temperature. But this also means that there is no fresh air coming into the home. We need fresh air to dilute the effects of cooking and cleaning and to allow any chemicals from the building material in our homes or other home processes to vent. That\u2019s why many homeowners bring in a professional to install heat recovery ventilators or energy recovery ventilators. We\u2019ll go over the difference in the following post.<\/p>\n
If you want fresh air in your home, you could simply crack a window, but this brings along with it undesirable temperatures. In the winter, you don\u2019t want heat to escape from your home, and in the summer, you don\u2019t want to let it in. A heat recovery ventilator uses fans to pull in the fresh outdoor air while exhausting the stale outside air. However, as it flows through the HRV some of the heat from the warmer air transfers to the other air stream. In other words, the heat from the incoming air stream transfers to the exiting air stream in the summer so it does not move into your home. In the winter, the heat from the outgoing air stream is transferred to the incoming fresh air.<\/p>\n
An energy recovery ventilator does everything that a heat recovery ventilator does, except that it is more effective at transferring moisture. The moisture in the humid air stream transfers over, so moisture can move into your home when the air is too dry and moisture moves out when it\u2019s hot and sticky, without mixing the two airstreams.<\/p>\n