Your Comprehensive Guide to Energy Recovery Ventilators

An energy recovery ventilator (ERV) is a type of ventilation system that removes stale indoor air and brings freshly filtered outdoor air into your Tubac, AZ, home. Energy recovery ventilators improve indoor air quality without driving up HVAC operating costs. Read on to learn more about these IAQ solutions.

What’s an Energy Recovery Ventilator?

An energy recovery ventilator is a ventilation device connected to the ducts that are part of your HVAC system. ERVs draw a precise amount of fresh outdoor air into your home and remove stale indoor air using two fans.

There are four types of ERVs: the rotary heat exchanger, plate heat exchanger, heat-pipe heat exchanger and runaround loop coil. ERV ventilation systems remove contaminants, pollutants, allergens and pollen, ensuring the air within your home is clean and healthy.

ERVs extract energy from stale indoor air removed from a building and use it to precondition freshly filtered outdoor air brought into the building. As a result, they reduce the load on your HVAC system.

How Does an Energy Recovery Ventilator Work?

The ERV connects to the duct part of your heating and air conditioning system. ERVs have a recovery wheel that slowly rotates through the supply and exhaust air streams. This wheel is constructed using a polymer material with a desiccant (drying agent) bonded to the surface.

The wheel absorbs heat from the higher temperature airstream. It releases the heat to lower temperature airstream as it rotates while also picking up moisture from the higher humidity airstream using the desiccant and deposits the moisture in the lower humidity air stream.

ERVs capture contaminants, pollutants, allergens and pollen to ensure that the air that is within your home is clean and healthy. ERVs brings clean, fresh air into your home and remove stale air using two fans.

Benefits of ERV

• Promote Fresh Air: An ERV brings fresh outside air into your home while exhausting the stale inside air out of the home. During this process, the ERV preconditions the outside air to avoid any loss of energy efficiency. The cleaner air brought inside will improve the indoor air quality.
• Reduce Energy Consumption: Pre-treating incoming fresh air will enable the HVAC system to maintain a comfortable temperature indoors. It will ultimately help your system’s energy consumption to go down.
• Keep Humidity Levels in Check: The ERV facilitates humidity control by reducing outdoor air humidity during the summer. It also adds moisture to the outdoor air stream from the outgoing exhausted air during winter.
• Prevent Biological Growth and Bad Odor: High humidity during summer impacts how you feel in your home and how it looks. The house’s moisture can affect paint, rot furniture or even crack walls. The ERV will help in removing excess moisture, thus preventing biological growth and rotting smells.
• Improve Respiration for Asthma Sufferers: According to the America Academy of Allergy Asthma and Immunology, dust mites are a major cause of indoor allergens. These symptoms are exceedingly high in spaces with high humidity. The ERV filters air coming into the house before distributing it; this will relieve viruses and bacteria from accumulating in your home.
• Extend the Life of Your HVAC System: An ERV will reduce the frequency at which your heater and air conditioner will run to ensure your home meets the desired comfort levels required indoors, reducing wear and tear. They also prevent contaminants such as dirt and other debris from clogging air filters or other issues such as leaky duct ductwork. They can also help reduce inconvenient, costly breakdowns and keep your HVAC system working longer.

To learn more about how our energy-efficient ERVs can improve your home’s indoor air quality and save on energy costs and maintaining a comfortable home, get in touch with the professionals at Oasis Air Conditioning & Heating. We look forward to assisting you.

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