Energy-Recovery Ventilator (ERV) can keep your indoor air healthy and at the meantime, save energy. There are a few ways to assess if you need to install one.

1. Blower door test. It can be performed as part of an energy audit. If the air exchanges per hour is 0.5 or less, an ERV is probably a good idea.

2. Assess how long odor lingers. The longer an odor persists in your home, the tighter the home is. ERV is essential for a more air-tight home

3. If you do not have appropriate venting for your heating or cooking equipment, such as a hood, it is recommended to have an ERV installed.

4. If you have an attached garage with no proper ventilation, it is a good idea to install an ERV to get rid of the car exhaust fumes entering the home.

5. If you store toxic chemicals and paints indoors, or formaldehyde level is high in your home, ERV will certainly help.

6. If radon levels are high, installing an ERV is a good idea, although it is not sufficient enough if radon levels are too high (above 15pCi/L)

To learn more about ERV, click here.

If you have a super-insulated house, it may not allow enough fresh air to come in for a healthy indoor environment. To solve the problem, consider installing an energy-recovery ventilator (ERV), also known as air heat exchangers.

ERV is a ventilation system that removes stale, polluted air from inside the house and replaces it with fresh air from outside.

ERV has a component called heat exchanger. Outgoing warm air passes through the heat exchanger and the heat from the air is transferred to the incoming cold air. This saves much energy since the house heater doesn’t need to warm up the cold fresh air.

ERV can be controlled by either timers or humidistats. It can either remove excess humidity from the house or be set to add humidity when desired.

To read more about ERV, click here.