As more home buyers come to
accept whole-house ventilation as a
necessity rather than an option, the
question of heat recovery becomes
an important consideration.
Anytime you exhaust stale air and
bring in fresh air, you are blowing
out heat and replacing it with cold
air that must be heated. This obviously
increases a home's heating
load. However, if some of the heat
from the exhaust air can be recovered,
the additional heat load is
reduced.
There are two ways to recover
this heat — with air-to-air heat
exchangers, or with ventilating heat
pumps. This month, I want to talk
about the ventilating heat pump.
This technology is little talked
about, but is a bit simpler to install
than air-to-air heat