Indoor Air Quality
Indoor air quality is especially important in energy efficient homes. When building a home that uses less energy one of the key components is air tightness. Sometimes air leakage in a home can account for 40-60% of your homes energy loss and in most cases the easiest to fix in an existing home. When we do this we essentially eliminate outdoor air from leaking unwanted into our homes. This is very important to ensure that your heating and cooling systems are working at their peak performance. The problem lies in not having the correct amount of fresh air, something we all need to stay healthy. For this purpose an air exchange system should always be installed in a very tightly sealed home. So, what is an air exchange system? Air exchange systems or HRV & ERV as they are commonly know are a means to bring in fresh air, at a regulated rate that will ensure that you have the necessary amount of fresh air in your home. While they are not exactly new, 20 years ago they were only designed for big commercial buildings. Over the past decade these systems have developed into cost effective ways to ensure that any home has a method of regulating and control air quality within your home. HRV or heat recovery ventilation is a common type of unit used here in New England, heat recovery meaning that the air expelled from the building is used to warm the incoming air in winter.
Some people prescribe to the method of using a bathroom fan to provide the needed air exchange. While this method works it has several drawbacks like creating negative pressure within you home. If you have a very tight home this can cause backdraft to other areas of the house. A tight home with a bathroom fan, stove exhaust, and clothes dryer running will create an extraordinary amount of negative pressure in the house and make those fans work harder to perform their tasks. Sometimes this will also cause a furnace to backdraft leading to an potentially dangerous situation.
Maintaining good indoor air quality can lead to better health for the occupants, in some systems we even provide HEPA filtration to alleviate symptoms of asthma and allergies.
