Ventilation & Air Quality
Remember the last time the weather was perfect and you opened up a few windows around the house? After an hour or so the house felt fresh. Is it possible to have fresh air all of the time with out wasting energy? Absolutely.
Every home needs an adequate supply of fresh air or the home can become musty or stale. The average home exchanges air with the outside at a rate of once per hour. Before additional ventilation, ERV or HRV units are considered, the envelope of the home should be tightened up through air sealing. The air seeps through the cracks and holes of your home to get inside. (13% of which will come through an attached garage) On its way into the home it picks up VOCs from the building materials in the wall cavities, fiberglass particulates from the insulation and whatever fumes and vapors are in the garage. It generally seeps out of the house through the attic area. In fact, if your home is more than 10 years old with fiberglass insulation bats in the attic; take a peek at them. You’ll see some areas where the insulation is dirty. The insulation has filtered some of the dirt out of the air on its way out of your home.
The better way for ventilation
Air seal the home tight and ventilate right. By air sealing the home and adding a mechanical ventilation system a homeowner has control over the air that they breath. Not only will the air quality improve but the heating and cooling costs will go down.
Mechanical ventilation uses a heat exchanger such as this. Fresh air from the outside comes into the house while stale air from the house goes outside. The two streams of air pass very close to each where the interior air passes it’s energy to the fresh air coming in. Fresh air without wasting energy.