Broan Products

On July 21, 2023, in news, by Michael
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We are thrilled to announce that we now have HRV and ERV products on our website made by Broan. Say goodbye to stale, polluted air in your homes with Broan’s state-of-the-art HRVs and ERVs. Promote a healthier and more inviting atmosphere for you and your loved ones with our selection of Broan products.

HRV and ERV products made by Fantech, Lifebreath, S&P and Aldes are also available.

Find out more about how HRVs and ERVs work, and which one is best for you here.

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HRVs and ERVs

On July 21, 2023, in news, by Michael
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What do HRVs and ERVs do?

HRVs and ERVs allows fresh air to get into the home, and makes stale air go out of the home. The fresh air coming in and the stale air going out travel through the HRV or ERV core, the stale air pre-conditions the fresh air as it’s coming in, and then the fresh air coming into the house is closer to the temperature inside of the house than before it comes in. This means that your house is conserving energy from having to heat or cool the fresh air coming into the house.

Why is this important?

According to the EPA, we spend approximately 90% of our time indoors, where the concentrations of some pollutants are often 2 to 5 times higher than typical outdoor concentrations. In order to combat this, it is important to have a constant airflow allowing air to travel in and out of the house. This filters out the stale, poluted air that has been sitting inside and replaces it with fresh air from outside.

What is the difference between an HRV and an ERV?

HRV is a heat recovery ventilator, the core does not allow for moisture to be transferred from one side of the core to the other. This means in humid conditions, the moisture of the fresh air is coming into your home. This will actually make your air conditioner work harder trying to get the moisture out of the air.

ERV is an energy recovery ventilator, the core allows the transfer of moisture from one side of the core to the other. This meanss that in humid conditions, part of the moisture of the fresh air is being transferred to the stale air going out, and your air conditioner doesn’t have to work as hard to get the moisture out of the air.

Which device is right for you?

This infographic can help determine if the HRV or the ERV is better for your home.

As you can see, in a majority of the United States, an HRV is recommended over the ERV. These are locations that are typically more dry with longer heating seasons.

As you get closer to the southeast of the United States, it is recommended to get an ERV as these locations are typically more humid with longer cooling seasons.

Click here for our available HRVs

Click here for our available ERVs

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The Stack Effect

On November 20, 2019, in did you know, news, by Nicole
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Do you feel like your home doesn’t retain heat well, or is just plain cold and drafty? Are your energy costs during the winter months out of control? It could be because all your heat is escaping through your attic.

Improper sealing and insulation of the attic space in a home can lead to a great deal of your warm air escaping. It is known that heat rises, so this makes sense. Heat rises to the highest point in a confined space, the same as it would in a hot air balloon to make it rise.

As warm air escapes out the top of the house, the negative pressure created by this action sucks cold exterior air in through lower areas of the house, often times the basement and crawl space areas. This occurrence is known as the stack effect (also called the chimney effect) and can be the primary culprit in loss of warm air in many houses that haven’t had energy-saving upgrades.

Properly sealing the attic can help your home retain much of its heat. In addition, your home should have controlled ventilation to keep the air fresh and reduce pollution in your home. This can be attained through HRVs or ERVs or other ventilators.

HRVs and ERVs are essentially mechanical ventilators, but with a heat exchanger. This allows them to transfer heat between air streams, allowing for proper ventilation without sacrificing efficiency. They can take some of the load off your heating and cooling systems because of how they pre-warm and pre-cool air before it enters your home. HRVs can remove stuffy air from rooms with limited airflow and ERVs reduce humidity in the summer and help retain moisture in the air in the winter.

How HRVs and ERVs work.

Keeping a good temperature in your house, while properly ventilating is a delicate balance, but this is why there are so many products on the market to help you achieve the correct ratio, while also saving on energy.

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Kitchen Make-Up Air…

On October 12, 2011, in news, by jake
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It is now time to discuss the elephant in the room when it comes to kitchen ventilation…make up air. In elementary terms, it is as simple as “what goes out, must come in”.

With the trend of Commercial style ranges and other high output cooking devices, folks are having very large ventilation systems installed to evacuate the grease laden steam particles given off during cooking. While 1200 CFM for a kitchen fan sure sounds awe inspiring, and some ranges actually need this amount of flow…the reality is that as homes get tighter and more insulated, we are having a harder time getting air to feed this voracious fan. Years back, engineers could count on a fair bit of in-flow through gaps and other openings provided by lesser building standards that allowed make up air for not only the kitchen, but bath fans and clothes dryer as well. While this works, it is not ideal as during the winter you may be pulling in very cold air that begins to condensate in the wall and brings the possibility of mold growth.  Therefore, if it can’t come in cleanly from outside, it will come down the chimney or worse, through the exhaust vents of gas fired appliances (water heater and the like). This situation is called Backdrafting and is quite dangerous as it can bring noxious combustion exhaust back into the house. We want to avoid this at all costs!

Recent code changes to certain areas (and with more to come) are calling for Make Up Air when the kitchen range fan exceeds 300-400 cfm. For most residential uses, this is fine. However, when we start getting up to the higher end of Exhaust Fans, Make Up Air should be in your Mechanical Ventilation Plans. There are several ways to accomplish this, and as many options depending on where you live and your expected comfort level…

LEED is of the idea that air should not be evacuated to the outside, thereby keeping the envelope in tact. They assert that a recirculating type system should be utilized that filters the air with the use of activated carbon. The reality here is that these fans are typically noisy and ineffective so they are unused and the grease ends up on cabinets and other surfaces. It is our belief that the air should be evacuated fully out of the structure to maintain good indoor air quality. In reality, the kitchen fan is used for short periods of time only once or twice a day, so the overall loss of conditioned air is quite small. LEED also prefers to see a fan with a maximum of 200-250 cfm (which is nice as it eliminates any need for make up air, and for a well built home in the passivhaus style is probably sufficient).

Now then, what can we do about all this to get air to the kitchen hood? Restaurants actually provide filtered make up air at the hood and range location to allow for massive amounts to be cycled as they have quite a heat and steam/grease load to contend with. It is a great way to go, but the hoods are quite bulky and are not especially pleasing to the eye, unless gleaming monoliths of stainless steel float your boat. Some folks hope their HRV can provide the difference…sadly, no it can’t. HRVs are made for balanced load conditions where they take and replace the same amount of air. We do have one unit that can over-pressurize if necessary, but it cannot come close to supplying what a large kitchen fan will require. Of course, if you live in California or other temperate zone, an open window can provide all the air you need at a minimum of cost.

For the rest of us…mechanical make up air must be provided, and here are some ideas:

Adequate – You can have an opening to the outside that is operated manually or via motor, and preheated if you live in colder climes. Whilst it would be desirable to filter this incoming air, the static losses across the filter may make it operate at a lesser level than anticipated.

Better – Having a powered opening to the outside, with booster fan of equal power to the range fan, and a heater for the incoming air (if necessary), and a filter box to clean the air. This would provide the air the fan needed, tempered with warm air to lessen the shock of cold incoming air.

Best – A self contained filtered, heated make up air fan similar (but smaller) that a restaurant uses. Ones such as supplied by Shelter Supply, and even Soler Palau would be ideal. These can be costly and large, but are definitely a hassle free way to go.

So now we have discussed the hidden parts, let’s get to the real hard part…”Exactly what is this going to look like in my dream kitchen?”

There are many ways to accomplish bringing air into the kitchen. Ideally, a grille in the wall behind the range would allow for proper mixing of contaminants with the fresh air before the ascent up the vent pipe. This would work best with filtered and heated air so as not to make the chef uncomfortable, but it could be any of the methods discussed earlier.

Something that is becoming increasingly popular is to put rectilinear grilles in the toekick of the cabinet to keep them out of sight as well as promote an up-welling flow of the air to ensure even airflow. This would likely be the easiest to accomplish if one were remodelling the kitchen versus new home construction.

An interesting option I discovered on the internet is to have the grille feeding air from a powered fan or passively to the kitchen hidden behind the refrigerator. This hides the grille nicely, and the coils of the refrigerator act as a small pre-heater to take the edge of the temperature. Quite ingenious I thought.

The last way would involve diffusers in the ceiling, fed by a fan or short length of duct work in the attic to provide for air when necessary. This is less than ideal in terms of where the air is entering, but will provide us with the air the kitchen fan will need.

In an ideal world, the Make Up Fan and kitchen fan would be of similar performance as we like to maintain a balanced situation. I have seen some standards which call for 2/3 or 3/4 of the airflow of the kitchen fan to be supplied as make up air. This of course relies upon the cracks of the house to make up the rest. Under most circumstances, this may be correct, but as homes get tighter and tighter I can’t see this ratio working for long. Even older homes are being retrofitted to be sealed more extensively for energy savings, so we can no longer assume the house will give up the air we need. A good plan would call for balanced airflow coming and going.

Lastly, you will want to have the Make Up Fan on a speed control as well, so you can adjust the amount of air coming in. No sense in bringing in 1000CFM if you are boiling water for tea with your range hood on low power. You could get a large capacity speed controller that will handle both fans at once, or have them on separate controls so you could choose when the Make Up Fan runs. There would be no need to run the Make Up Fan on a nice summer evening when you likely have doors and windows open.

 

 

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Why you need ventilation.

On June 30, 2010, in solutions, by radek
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Older leaky buildings permitted sufficient air change (fresh air infiltration) to remove pollutants (such as carbon dioxide, moisture, mold spores, formaldehyde from building products) by the natural forces of wind and stack effect.  Newer, tightly built homes do not allow this air exchange.

The best way to introduce fresh air into a home is through the use of an HRV or ERV.  These products allow for balanced ventilation, same amount of air is exhausted as brought into the house, and the majority of the heat/cool is recovered from the exhaust stream into the incoming air.  You get the best of both worlds — good air quality and low operating cost.

Heat Recovery (HRV) and Energy Recovery (ERV) units:
http://www.hvacquick.com/products/residential/Indoor-Air-Quality/Residential-HRV-ERV

Fantech heat recovery units

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