The most important part of preparing a home for the coming winter is to schedule regular maintenance for the heating system. (Our Proactive Service Agreement is an easy way to have maintenance done each fall, as well as maintenance for the air conditioner in the spring.) But there are some upgrades you can make to your HVAC system that will provide even better heating performance, comfort, and energy efficiency this winter. One of these upgrades that we install is an ERV.
Wait, what’s an ERV?
The letters stand for “Energy Recovery Ventilator.” It’s a device integrated into the ventilation system in a home that pre-heats or pre-cools air drawn from the outside using air pulled from the inside of the house. The fresh outdoor air moves through a current of the stale indoor air, and heat transfers from one to the other.
What’s the benefit of this?
During winter, a house can become extremely stuffy and filled with contaminants because it is sealed off from the outside. Bringing in fresh air means bringing in the cold, and this places stress on the heating system. What an ERV does is allow fresh air into the ventilation system and the rooms without also bringing in the cold. The ERV takes the air in the house that’s already heated and uses it to warm up the incoming air. In this way, it “recovers” the energy that was used to warm up the house and uses it for the incoming fresh air. A home enjoys fresher, cleaner air without making the heater overwork.
There’s an additional benefit of an ERV, which is it helps to balance humidity. The air outside is extremely dry in winter, but it gains moisture along with heat from the indoor air current as it moves through the ERV. This keeps the house from becoming excessively dry, a problem that’s common with furnaces.
Looking for more indoor air quality and heating help in Princeton, LA? Call the Doctor of Home Comfort, Hall’s Heating, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration!
