Heat Recovery Ventilators or HRV's

Ever wondered how fresh the air in your home is?  Air quality can depend on a number of different variables, such as humidity, mould , asbestos, radon, lead, carbon monoxide, biologicals, formaldehyde and pesticides. It also can be something as simple as the age of your home and maybe how often you open a window.  Opening a window in the middle of winter or summer is not the most efficient thing to do, especially when considering your homes heating and cooling costs.  Maybe you should consider an HRV?  You may also want to consider a home inspection to further understand your home.

With today’s residential construction techniques our homes are becoming very tightly sealed enclosures, preventing air intrusion and air leakage.  The air inside these tightly sealed envelopes can become stale and full of moisture, which can lead to air quality issues and cause potential health problems.  A Heat Recovery Ventilator (HRV) can help solve these problems as the system removes stale indoor air and replaces it with fresh outdoor air.  This fresh colder outdoor air and the stale heated indoor air passes through a heat exchange core, which transfers the warmth from the outgoing air to the incoming air.  This exchange reduces the energy needed from your furnace to warm untreated incoming air.  HRV's are constantly ventilating your homes air, allowing the house to breathe without the need to open a window, they also can significantly improve your indoor air quality!

HRV’s are not just used for the winter.  They also help keep your home cool in the summer and keep the house air fresh, as well as reducing moisture levels. These properly installed systems are very efficient and can recover up to 85% of the heat lost in your homes outgoing air.

A home inspection is a great start to fully understanding all your home systems and components.  The inspection will help you determine whether or not this system may be a viable option for your home.  We also recommend having your home’s HVAC system inspected by a qualified HVAC contractor to further investigate your options when it comes to heating and cooling.


House CSI

An HRV in action.