When the temperature outdoors drops, you don’t want your home to suffer from any cold draughts that might sneak in. To make sure that you keep the heat trapped inside your home where it belongs, you need to have strong insulation in the walls and attic and all air leaks sealed.
But this leads to a problem: without any fresh air getting inside, the air in your home is likely to turn stale and become filled with airborne contaminants. You can’t fling open the windows and doors to let in the air, however, because it will place immense strain on the heater.
An Energy Recovery Ventilator Gives You a Way around This
Here’s where an energy recovery ventilator (ERV) comes in handy. This is a device that a professional can install into your HVAC system that allows fresh air into your home without putting extra pressure on the heating system. An ERV recovers around 85% of the energy that would otherwise be lost to the outside and applies that thermal energy to the incoming air.
Here is how it works: The ERV draws a current of cold, fresh air through a vent. It then runs this fresh outdoor air current through an opposite current of stale air drawn from inside the house. Heat transfer takes place, and the indoor air loses heat the outdoor air, warming up the outdoor air. By the time the fresh air current reaches the heating system, it has already been pre-heated. The stale air is vented outside, and the fresh air enters the home.
A great benefit of having an ERV installed is that it also works during the summer: the same process operates in reverse, with warm outdoor air losing its heat to the indoor air, which pre-cools it before it reaches the air conditioner. You’ll enjoy fresher air around the year without worrying about overstraining your AC or heater and paying higher bills.
Hall’s Heating, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration offers installation and other services for energy recovery ventilators in Haughton, LA.
