Fort Collins Heating & Air Conditioning Blog

Tag: erv

Picture this–and it shouldn’t be too hard this Woman-Blowing-Nose-300x224time of the year: The temperature outside is soaring, and you have to run your air conditioner pretty much around the clock to stay comfortable. Okay, that’s fine. Your system is tuned up and ready to go. Of course, you also want to ensure that you are using your system efficiently while you live comfortably, so you double check to make sure that all of your windows are closed. This is the problem.

When you seal up your home in order to keep conditioned air inside, you are cutting off your supply of fresh air. Air conditioners dehumidify the air as they run, so sealing up your home to keep your AC bills down can really have a negative affect on your indoor air quality. Using an energy recovery ventilator in Timnath, CO can help you to avoid this issue.

How It Works

An energy recovery ventilator is as ingenious as it is simple in theory. Basically, the device is just a ventilator that also acts as a heat exchanger. It is integrated into your HVAC system, and allows you to use the air exiting your home to pre-condition the fresh air coming in. It also helps to balance humidity between the airstreams.

When you are using your air conditioner to cool the air in your home, it gets stale and dry. When venting this air out of the house, the ERV allows it to absorb heat from the fresh air coming in. This takes some strain off of your air conditioning system.

During the winter, the air outside is obviously very cold. When the ERV allows it into your home, the outgoing warm air preheats it. That means that you are recovering much of the energy that you paid for to heat that outgoing air, while also enjoying improved indoor air quality.

Schedule your IAQ services with Fort Collins Heating & Air Conditioning. Big enough to serve, small enough to care.

Twitter

When you heat your home—or cool it, for that matter—you want to do so in the most efficient manner possible. Nobody wants to overpay for their comfort. That is why so many homes are constructed so tightly these days.

The problem is that, by sealing up your home extremely tightly, you can actually put your indoor air quality at risk. If your home does not have sufficient insulation, you may be able to cut down on unwanted heat transfer. Your air quality will likely fall as a result, however. An ERV helps you to enjoy both great efficiency and outstanding indoor air quality. 

Recover the Energy You’ve Paid For

Ventilating your home is important if you don’t want the air within to go stale and decline in quality. However, you obviously are not going to throw your windows open in the middle of winter to let the fresh air in. That would waste the energy that you’ve used to heat your home, right?

Well, when you use an energy recovery ventilator in Timnath, CO, you can bring fresh air into your home while recovering the energy that you used to heat it in the first place. The outgoing warm air basically pre-cools the incoming fresh, but cold, air. In the summer, the heat exchange just goes in the opposite direction. The incoming hot air has some of its heat removed by the outgoing cool air.

In the process, the humidity of the air streams is also balanced. This serves to further boost the quality of the air in your home. No longer must you choose between fresh, clean air, comfort, and your budget. ERVs work year round to strike the balance between these factors.

Schedule your indoor air quality services with the professionals at Fort Collins Heating & Air Conditioning. Big enough to serve, small enough to care.

Twitter

When you think of keeping your home comfortable and everyone within that space happy throughout the summer season, your mind probably instantly jumps to your air conditioning system. During the hottest time of the year, your air conditioner is going to put in a lot of work in order to keep your house cool, after all. However, you really cannot afford to overlook the importance of your indoor air quality during the summer months, either. Too often, homeowners sacrifice the indoor air quality in the name of efficient cooling. This need not be the case, however, so long as you use an energy recovery ventilator.

What Does an ERV Do, and Why Should I Invest in One?

An ERV, or energy recovery ventilator, is your means by which to bridge the gap between great comfort and great indoor air quality, without draining your budget in the process. The moniker “energy recovery ventilator” is as about as descriptive as possible. An ERV is a ventilator that, through an energy recovery process, helps you to cut down on energy loss during the ventilation process.

When temperatures soar outside, you seal up your home and run your air conditioner. The issue with doing so is that your home really should have some natural ventilation going on. This helps to prevent the AC from drying out the air too much, and just keeps the air in your home fresher. With our modern focus on efficiency, though, we eliminate as much of this ventilation as possible.

An energy recovery ventilator solves the problem. It will vent old, stale air out of your home. This air is cool, and you’ve paid to cool it, though. That is why the ERV will use that cool air to absorb some of the heat of the incoming air, recovering the energy that you paid for to cool the air. In fact, it can do the opposite in the winter, as well, bringing in fresh, cold air and pre-warming it with warm, but stale, outgoing air. ERVs can also balance humidity in the passing streams, further protecting your comfort and indoor air quality.

Contact Fort Collins Heating & Air Conditioning today to schedule ERV services in Timnath, CO.

Twitter

Whether heating your home in the winter or cooling it down during the long, hot summer season, you want to be able to keep your living space comfortable in an effective, yet efficient, manner. You also must be able to maintain great indoor air quality in your home, though, and that can be difficult when your home is very tightly sealed in an effort to heat and cool it efficiently. If it sounds like a problem without a solution, you are clearly unfamiliar with the concept of the ERV. By using an energy recovery ventilator in Fort Collins, CO, you ensure that your indoor air quality is high, without your heating and cooling costs following suit.

 

What Is an ERV?

An energy recovery ventilator is a pretty ingenious device that facilitates the ventilation of one’s home while also eliminating the risk of unwanted energy loss. Essentially, the ERV uses a heat transfer process in order to precondition the fresh air coming into a home. During the summer, the system will use the stale, but cool, outgoing air in order to cool down the incoming fresh, but hot, air. In the winter, the process is reversed, with the outgoing warm air being used to warm the incoming cold, fresh air. Additionally, the ERV is used to balance humidity between the incoming and outgoing air streams as well.

This benefits you in a few ways. First of all, it means that you won’t have to worry about subpar indoor air quality as the air within your home is conditioned over and over again, going stale. Also, you are able to keep indoor air quality high by ventilating your home sufficiently, but without wasting the energy that you’ve already paid for in the process. If this all sounds like a good deal to you, dial our number today to get started.

Contact Fort Collins Heating & Air Conditioning to learn more.

Twitter

Many homeowners are surprised to learn that there are great devices and appliances that they can use to make their homes more efficient and comfortable, yet they’ve never even heard of them. While an energy recovery ventilator may not be quite as commonly mentioned as, say, a garbage disposal, it is nevertheless a device that can benefit many homeowners greatly. No, it won’t take the sting out of doing the dishes after dinner. By using an energy recovery ventilator in Loveland, CO, though, you can ensure that your home is efficiently and effectively heated and cooled, without putting your indoor air quality on the chopping block. Review the following information, and remember to schedule your IAQ and HVAC services with Fort Collins Heating & Air Conditioning.

What Is an ERV?

An energy recovery ventilator, or ERV, is a mechanical ventilation device that is integrated into one’s HVAC system. The ERV allows for old, stale air to be vented out of your house, while also allowing for fresh air to come in. How does this differ from an open window, you may wonder? Well, the ERV also serves as a heat exchanger. This means that in the winter, when the air in your home is warm but of a low quality, the ERV uses the heat from the outgoing air in order to pre-warm the incoming air. In the summer, the outgoing cool air absorbs heat from the incoming hot air. This can benefit you in a few ways.

Benefits of Using an ERV

Using an ERV allows you to maintain great indoor air quality without wasting the energy that you’ve already used in heating or cooling the air existing your home. It works year round to pre-condition incoming air, and also mixes the airstreams just enough to balance humidity as well. If you want to breathe fresh air in a well-ventilated home without wasting a lot energy in the pursuit, then an ERV may be just what you’ve been looking for.

Twitter

Everyone wants and, we believe, deserves to be comfortable in their own homes. That being said, there are many factors which can influence someone’s heating and/or cooling habits. Worrying about how much it is going to cost to maintain a comfortable environment in your home, or about how you will ventilate your living space successfully without wasting energy, are not problems that you need to concern yourself with any longer. Simply use an energy recovery ventilator in Fort Collins, CO to ensure that you are striking the right balance between comfort, efficiency, and air quality. Contact Fort Collins Heating & Air Conditioning today for more details about how ERVs work. 

 

Better Air Quality

An energy recovery recovery ventilator is a mechanical ventilation device designed to recoup energy that would otherwise be wasted in ventilating one’s home. Modern homes tend to be pretty airtight, as we have grown more and more concerned with the efficient use of energy in our homes. However, sealing one’s home up too tightly can be very detrimental to the quality of the air in one’s home. While it will eliminate the risk of energy loss via air leaks, it can also make it virtually impossible to ventilate one’s home successfully. Older homes may err on the side of too much ventilation, with inefficient home envelopes. By equipping your modern, tighter home with an ERV, though, you can adequately ventilate your living space without wasting energy in the process.

Better Energy Efficiency

How exactly does an ERV balance air quality and efficiency, then? Well, when dry, cool air is vented out of your home in the summer, the hot, more humid air being brought in is precooled by the outgoing stale air. In the winter, warm but stale air is vented outside, and heats up incoming fresh, but cold, air in the process. Humidity is also balanced, unlike with an HRV (heat recovery ventilator). The result is air of a high quality, lower energy costs, less energy waste, and an overall better heating and cooling experience.

Twitter

Among the greatest difficulties when heating and cooling one’s home is not only doing so effectively and efficiently, but doing so while also maintaining high levels of indoor air quality. Many modern homeowners seek to seal up their homes as tightly as possible in an effort to minimize any energy waste that may occur due to air leaks and other issues. The problem with this is that it negates the appropriate levels of natural ventilation which you need in order to keep the air in your home fresh.

By using an ERV or HRV in Fort Collins, CO, though, you can heat and cool your home efficiently while also allowing for sufficient ventilation, keeping the quality of the air in your home high. Here is some information to consider regarding such systems, courtesy of the IAQ experts here at Fort Collins Heating & Air Conditioning. If you decide that an HRV or ERV is right for you, then just give us a call.

ERVs (energy recovery ventilators) and HRVs (heat recovery ventilators) are both mechanized ventilation systems, and both operate fairly similarly. In order to vent old, stale air out of the home without wasting the energy that you used in order to condition it, the ERV or HRV passes this air stream by the incoming air, which is not conditioned but is fresh from the outdoors. A transfer of thermal energy takes place, meaning that heat from the air inside is used to pre-warm cold incoming air during the winter months. In the summer, the cool air leaving your home pre-chills the hot, fresh air coming in. Energy recovery ventilators, though, unlike HRVs, allow the air streams to mix a bit, rather than just passing them very near one another.

This intermingling of the air streams allow for the balancing of humidity levels, in addition to the heat transfer that heat recovery ventilators also offer. By balancing humidity for optimal levels, energy recovery ventilators can help to prevent the unwanted fluctuation of humidity during the ventilation process. While some people may recommend that HRVs are best used in cold, dry climates, as humidity is not as much of an issue, the truth is that determining whether or not your home will best benefit from an HRV or ERV may vary on a case to case basis.

A number of factors, including air leaks in the home envelope, the number of square feet measured against the number of occupants, and even the personal habits of people in your home may impact the decision. By hiring and IAQ specialist, such as those at Fort Collins Heating & Air Conditioning, you can know for certain that you are choosing the right system for your needs. If you are wondering if an energy recovery ventilator or a heat recovery ventilator is right for you, then just give us a call today.

Twitter

Fort Collins Heating & Air Conditioning Blog

Search

Archive

Archive

Categories

Categories

Tags