Could Your Home Benefit from a Heat Recovery Ventilator?
Winter has arrived, and while the East Coast suffered a serious bout of cold weather last week, we here in Kansas concede nothing in the brutal winters department. Your heating system needs to perform every day in order to keep your home warm and comfortable. But it goes further than that. You want your home to be as energy efficient as possible in order to lower the strain on your heater (and lower your monthly bills as well). Then there are other considerations such as indoor air quality, which can take a big hit when you button up your home to fend off the cold.We recommend the installation of heat recovery ventilators, or HRVs, in homes with concerns about indoor air quality, as well as those that want to help their heater do its job more efficiently. How does it work and what can it do for your home? Read on for the answers.
The System
The system itself is installed in your attic or similar location. Hot air rises naturally which makes the attic the ideal choice for the system. It's actually fairly simple: a pair of ducts, each with a fan on either end. One fan blows stale air out of the home while another fan pulls fresh air in from outside. The two ducts never cross, but a heat exchanger in the middle of the system transfers the temperature from the outgoing air to the incoming air, ensuring that your home stays comfortable in the process.
How Does That Help?
At first glance, it might seem like a lot of fuss for little effort, but in fact HRVs provide some large benefits. For starters, they allow the heating system to retain comfortable temperatures more readily. This eases the strain placed on heating systems, especially in the winter, which in turn lowers the risk of a breakdown and the need for repairs. In addition, it means the heater won't need to expend as much energy to keep your home warm, and that means lower monthly bills overall.But there's a more tangible benefit as well. When the weather gets cold, we don't air out our homes: no one opens the windows for long during the winter, and we don't leave our doors open beyond the time it takes to scoot in and scoot out. That can leave the air in your home feeling stale, as well as circulating things like dust and bacteria that can make your family sick very easily. The problem only gets worse as the winter goes on and the indoor air quality deteriorates.HRVs solve these troubles by circulating the air without costing you an energy efficiency. Dust and germs are removed--improving your family's health--and the air as a whole feels fresher and cleaner, even late in the winter when your home has been buttoned up for months.
If an HRV sounds like a good fit for your Overland Park, KS home, or you have an existing system and it needs some TLC, call MVP Electric, Heating & Cooling today!