Heat recovery ventilators provide an energy-efficient method of removing stale, polluted air from inside your home and replacing it with fresh air from the outdoors. To understand what makes these units more efficient than traditional ventilation systems, you first need to know a little more about how they work.

Without adequate ventilation, pollutants can become trapped inside your home, resulting in poor indoor air quality. Not only can this leave your house feeling stuffy and unclean, but in many cases these pollutants can pose a serious threat to your overall health and well-being.

The challenge is to find a way to bring fresh, clean air into your home without sacrificing energy efficiency in the process. Perhaps the best solution to this problem is to install a heat recovery ventilator.

At the most basic level, heat recovery ventilators are made up of two fans blowing in opposite directions. One fan blows stale air out of your house, while the other draws clean air in. These two streams of air pass through an aluminum heat exchanger, where heat from the indoor air is transmitted to the outdoor air, effectively preheating it before it enters your home. This helps reduce the heating load for your furnace, saving energy as a result. On average, most heat recovery ventilators are able to recover approximately 80 to 85 percent of the heat from the air.

Keep in mind that if you install a heat recovery ventilator, you may see a slight increase in your power costs due to the fact that not all of the heat is recovered. However, the payoff is that you can enjoy clean, fresh air inside your home year-round, while losing as little energy as possible.

If you live in the Greater West Chester area and would like to learn more about heat recovery ventilators, contact the experts today at Tri-County Heating & Cooling!

Fresh air image via Shutterstock.