Stop Hating your HRV and Start Loving It!

Understanding your HRV system and its benefits can help.

Your Home’s HRV system not only dehumidifies, an essential part in keeping a tight well-built home healthy during winter months, it can also provide bathroom exhaust air requirements, reducing construction costs, and has the potential to improve air quality for the entire home.

When working in my Family’s sheet metal shop as a pre-apprentice in mid 90’s, “air quality” was a joke. My Father, the quintessential sheet metal worker would laugh at wearing a mask. “Ha, it’s too late for me.”

Working in our community as a Design / Build HVAC Engineer, I have identified a major lack of concern regarding indoor air quality & proper ventilation and have failed to express these ideas enough times to know this much…. Ignorance is bliss, “I see nothin”… I don’t see that black mold on the wall.

The two major problems with residential installations of improved air quality systems can be broken up into two categories… Retrofits & New Construction.

1.) Retrofit

• Poor Air Quality Budget. Therefore, proposed solutions are too costly.

• No Money available for this “Luxury” item.

  • Air Quality should be your Priority not your Luxury.

  • A tight, well-built, home in our climate, without proper ventilation, will effect the health of the occupants and the building itself.

2.) New Construction

• Too low of a Ventilation budget. Which leads to poor quality installations.

• Quality HRV installations are critical in providing true ventilation for the home.

• Poor HRV installations are what give these units a bad wrap. They don’t function as intended and People shut them off or don’t use them properly.

As part of the Fairbanks Construction Community we need to start to prioritized proper ventilation budgeting to ensure these new tight homes are being ventilated properly. Existing homes or buildings in pursuit of ventilation improvements should attempt to meet current ventilation standards.

You can go a week without food, a few days without water, but try holding your breath. This simple idea identifies the importance of fresh air and why it should be a priority for you, your family, and your Home.

P.S. We include pets within our ventilation equations, as they are part of our families as well.

Personal Ventilation Improvements…

Air Quality and Healthy Environments are a priority for us. Each home my wife and I have occupied in Fairbanks has provided us with different ventilation challenges. Our first Rental Home had a basement covered with new paint… I know…Warning Sign! It had a Furnace in the Basement, no Combustion Air, and no Outside Air Ventilation. Since it was a Rental, a HRV installation was not a viable option at that time. Having experienced the effects of mold contamination in the home, (it attacks your nervous system) I will tell you, it is not something you can’t ignore. We added Ventilation by mixing outside air with the building’s return air and installed adequate combustion air for the oil burning appliance.

Our next home, the first one we purchased, and like may of you, poured our heart and soul into that fixer-upper. By the time we were done, the home had a beautiful Heat Recovery Ventilation System with…

• Upgraded 3-Stage Supply Air Filtration w/

• Pre-Filter (MERV 8 )/

• 2nd Stage Carbon Impregnated Filter /

• Final Filter (MERV 13)

• Duel-Core Aluminum Heat Exchanger,

• Garage Exhaust Air without Recirculation,

• Bathroom Boost Station Controls,

• Standard Return Air Filtration,

• Flow Measuring Stations, &

• Polar Defrost Controls.

This HRV was a wedding gift, from Lifebreath, during the pursuit of the Polar Defrost HRV Defrost Control Option, catering to the idea that Our climate is outside the Factory’s design parameters concerning extended periods of cold outside air temperatures, therefore requiring an additional control to ensure proper Heat Exchanger Core Defrost. Applicable when installed in the interior of Alaska.

This HRV Control Option, significantly benefited the ventilation options available for the people of the Fairbanks area as well as the interior of Alaska. Providing a true Defrost Cycle that actually works in our climate. Utilizing a change of temperature across the heat exchanger core, rather than a timed cycle based on outside air temperatures which may or may-not provided adequate defrost. This option was made available for our community due to this past decades rapid Neighborhood Developments at Ft. Wainwright, AK.

HRV Systems can achieve minimum ventilation requirements. However, you don’t have to stop there.

Many HRV installers identify low equipment costs and cheap installations. At WBMC, we prioritize the health of the people and the building, build upon minimum ventilation standards, and expand upon them. In many instances we utilize your existing home’s HRV system to achieve this, by managing your homes relative humidity levels and improving your indoor air quality.

For many… Our homes are our biggest investment…. Let’s keep them healthy!

For Residential Sheet Metal Ventilation Design / Build Options available for your home, please contact us.