What is an Energy Recovery Ventilator?

Would your Mount Pleasant, Texas, home benefit from an energy recovery ventilator (ERV)? To answer that question, you need to understand what an ERV is, how it works, and what it can do. Read on to learn about energy recovery ventilators.

What Is It?

An energy recovery ventilator is an HVAC add-on designed to improve your home’s indoor air quality (IAQ) while preserving HVAC efficiency. It replaces stale indoor air with fresh air from outside without wasting energy or affecting comfort like an open window would.

Bryant’s line of IAQ products includes four different ERV models as well as five heat recovery ventilators. ERVs are designed to be more efficient than other ventilators. They use thermal energy from outgoing air to pre-condition incoming air.

How Does It Work?

You can use energy recovery ventilators ear-round to bring fresh air into your home. Most models feature two fans: one to push indoor air out and one to pull outdoor air in. These two air streams are kept separate. However, thermal energy from outgoing air is used to pre-condition incoming air. That way, the effort your HVAC system puts into heating or cooling the outgoing air won’t be wasted. It exchanges air but maintains to indoor temperature. Incoming air is also pre-filtered to prevent outdoor pollutants from negatively impacting your indoor air quality.

What Can It Do?

ERVs offer several benefits to homeowners. Modern homes were built with energy efficiency in mind. As a result, they include tight thermal envelopes to keep conditioned air inside your home and other air out. Unfortunately, this seal also traps indoor pollutants inside.

Although you can bring fresh air into your home by opening a door or window, this can be an unpleasant and inefficient solution on hot or cold days. An ERV pre-filters and pre-conditions the air to improve your comfort and reduce the strain on your HVAC system.

Ready to install an energy recovery ventilator in your home? Call Wood Air Conditioning & Plumbing at 903-285-6550 for all of your heating, cooling and indoor air quality needs.

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