To ensure good indoor air quality, installing an Energy Recovery or Heat Recovery Ventilator (E/HRV) is often employed as a solution. Yet, E/HRV installations can lead to unbalanced airflow in three key ways.
According to Srikanth Puttagunta, PE, principal mechanical engineer with Steven Winter Associates, writing for The Energy & Environmental Building Alliance (EEBA), identifies duct issues, install errors, and ineffective frost prevention controls as the three drivers causing unbalanced airflow with E/HRV installations, and offers a solution, by way of a new design that relies on builder input.
To deliver the needed fresh air, an E/HRV must be installed in a way that guarantees balanced airflows—where the intake and exhaust airstreams move equal volumes. But the design of these units makes proper installation difficult and, when integrated with the HVAC system (as most are), almost ensures that they fail to work as advertised.
Advertisement
Related Stories
Indoor Air Quality
Mechanical Ventilation in Homes Works—If You Use It
Building America field studies show a disconnect between intended and actual use of mechanical ventilation systems in newer homes
Indoor Air Quality
Wellness Begins with the Air You Breathe
ActivePure® Technology is a patented, proactive air purification technology that cleans indoor air faster and more effectively than…
Quality Matters
How to Build Healthy Homes That Protect Homebuyers From Radon
Consider a relatively simple and inexpensive passive mitigation system to vent radon—a radioactive, odorless, invisible gas—and deliver a truly healthy home
