Energy Recovery Ventilation
The tighter construction of today's homes can restrict air exchange, trapping stale polluted air inside your home. Dust, chemicals, and other airborne contaminants as well as excessive humidity can circulate through the air in your home, aggravating asthma and allergy symptoms. This is why we use geothermal systems to improve geothermal indoor air quality for your home.
The energy recovery ventilator (ERV) is designed to expel stale polluted air outdoors and refresh your home with clean outside air, while at the same time recovering energy and pre-tempering the air coming into your home. Mechanical ventilation systems bring raw outdoor air into the home, which depending on the day, may be unpleasant and add extra load to the heat and air system to condition. The ERV reduces this extra load while at the same time providing you fresh air.
The heat exchanger core recovers up to 84% of the heat or energy from the stale indoor air being exhausted and transfers it to the clean incoming outdoor air. These units also help to maintain proper humidity levels in your home, thus maximizing energy efficiency and lowering utility costs.
Stale indoor air is exhausted from the homes bathrooms, kitchen, and laundry room areas and ducted to the ERV. Fresh air is supplied by ducting from the ERV to the return ducts of the heat and air system. The system is best controlled by using an intermittent fan setting on the thermostat so that when the heat and air systems fan turns on the ERV turns on. It is common to set the thermostat to operate the fan 10 minutes every hour, even if there is no call for heating or cooling, so fresh air is brought into the home throughout the day and night.
Germicidal Air Filtration
Complete home comfort is about more than just temperature-it's also about maintaining a healthy home with indoor air quality.
Dusty, dirty homes at any temperature can mean discomfort. Although we usually can't see air pollutants, they are all around us, already inside our homes, and waiting to come in from outside.
Most people spend 90% of their time indoors, breathing an estimated 2,300 gallons of air every day. Poor air quality can aggravate allergies, asthma, and other respiratory ailments.
Just capturing pathogens on a filter (like most systems) doesn't eliminate all the risks associated with poor air quality. Dust, dead skin cells, and other matter collected on the filter provide nutrients on which trapped organisms can grow and produce waste products which are then carried downstream to the living space.
Installing an air purifier solution, such as Carrier's germicidal air filter, can offer extremely high air filtration efficiency and kill airborne pathogens. The air purifier uses precision point ionization to charge particles as they enter the purifier. A specially designed charged media captures airborne particles, and kills captured viruses, bacteria, mold, and other allergens.
Call Us for Improved Geothermal Indoor Air Quality
Call Comfortworks today for more information on geothermal indoor air quality. Our team can answer your question about our geothermal heating and cooling systems, our custom ductwork, and operating costs.