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home>HRV
SUSTAINABLE
LIVING
Installing a Heat Recovery Ventilation system
in my workshop
| October 5, 2008 |
 When I converted my workshop building from an
unfinished open structure to a super insulated,
solar heated space back in 2001 I
ended up with a building that is very well sealed - perhaps too well. The building
has a combination of sprayed in isocyanurate (Corbond)
foam and fiberglass that results in R30 walls and R40 roof insulation
values. The original cheap leaky windows are sealed in the winter
with interior window insulation
panels that totally block all air movement through them. I have been
concerned about air quality due to the extreme tightness of the envelope
especially in my closed second floor office. This year I have been gaining an education in building science that has led me to understand that average homes need to have the air exchanged every 3 hours (or 8 times per day) for optimum health and air quality. I learned this from Kurt Johnson of Fresh Air Ventilation Systems in Poland, Maine when he presented a very informative lecture on ventilation systems for the Midcoast Green Collaborative. Most houses leak enough that they see at least one full air exchange per day and older houses much more. So I have paid the price for sealing up my building too well -- now I have stuffy uncirculated air that can be unhealthy. This is particularly noticeable in my 2nd floor office with only one (sealed) window and one interior door. The heat for this 11 by 18 foot room is a 10ft. baseboard radiator. The only air that is forcibly removed from the building is drawn out by the 100CFM exhaust vent of the propane backup heater for my solar heating system. This can run from 4 to 12 or more hours a day in the dead of winter when it is cloudy. I have wondered where the incoming air comes from. Another issue is the poor draw of my wood stove, when the vent is running I often get a back draft that forces me to open the door to start a fire. Once the fire gets going I can close the door but at the cost of a lot of heat loss and subsequent poor draft. (The wood stove was added as a backup to the solar/propane heating system to reduce propane usage during extended overcast days.) |
.JPG)  The
solution to an overly tight envelope is to install a heat recovery unit that vents air out of the
building through a heat exchanger that transfers heat to an equal amount of fresh air
that is blown in to the building. I decided to install a
simple relatively inexpensive
Airivia
unit made by SunCourt. At a cost of around $500 this unit is one
of the best buys that I could find. There are 2 100CFM blowers in
the box, with the (black) heat recovery core in the center, and
electronics on the left between the 2 fans. I spent another $100
or so on ducting and hardware, so my total cost including shipping is
under $700. |
  The
heat recovery core contains hundreds of air channels in black plastic
layers that overlap in a cross pattern that allows incoming air to pass by in close contact
to outgoing air so that the heat is transferred from one to the other
without actually mixing the air streams. Since this model claims
86% efficiency at low speed, and 82% at high speed, I will be running it
on low speed and needing a bit more heat to make up the 14% loss.
Over the last few years I have managed to reduce my
propane consumption quite
a bit, so a small increase should not be too expensive. |
  The
simple control panel has a power switch, high/low switch and a selector
switch for the defrost feature, more on that later. I checked out the
power consumption with no ducting attached and found 52 Watts on the low
setting and 68 Watts on the high. This goes up by a few Watts if I
block one of the vents. The high speed creates about 100CFM (cubic feet
per minute) air flow, and the low setting is about 70CFM according to
the specifications.  Since
the HRV will be more than adequate to ensure over 9 air exchanges per
day on the low setting, I have decided to leave it on low and add my own
external timer to run it only during my work hours and leave it off most
of the night when it is coldest. The
timers that I use around the place to conserve energy come from
Harbor Freight.
They cost around $10.00 and are very well designed, with full battery
backup and multiple timing options per day.If I run the unit 6 hours/day at the 52 Watt setting that comes to 9.36 KWH per month. We are paying 18 cents/KW her in Maine (we elected to pay a premium for wind/hydro power that has zero carbon emissions), so my monthly cost to operate the HRV will be about $1.68 But there is the extra cost to make up the lost heat to consider too. |
 I decided to add labels to the front cover that will
aid me when I educate people about its function and purpose. I am
constantly showing my solar heating system to people who are considering
adding one themselves and the HRV is installed high on the wall of
my utility room where it will be inaccessible to open easily. I
used 2 shelf brackets, and also tied it to a ceiling beam with steel
strap for safety. |
  Running
the 6 inch ducts was relatively simple. I started with the duct
that feeds air into the building and ran it up to the 2nd floor and
behind the stub wall at the bottom of the roof slope to my office where it enters via a
grille behind my filing cabinets. I used flex duct to make the
initial run, then rigid galvanized 6" duct for the 14 foot run to the
office where it elbows into the room. SunCourt do not recommend
using flex duct as it creates turbulence that reduces air flow, but this
connection was rather challenging to make with regular rigid duct so I
compromised for a few feet. |
  The
air flow from my 2nd floor office to the utility room passes through 2
doors that I leave closed, So I cut holes above each door and installed
grilles to allow air to move throughout the building unimpeded. |
  I found all the duct material and grills at
the nearest big box hardware store and spent about $80.00 - except for the exterior vent caps.
I had to research them on-line and order them separately since no local
retailers carry 6 inch vent caps. These caps provide weather
proofing and have a mesh cover to prevent birds from nesting inside.
For the incoming air I had to remove the back draft flapper on one unit.
I also added fine window screen to the 1/4" wire mesh bird screen to
prevent bugs from entering the vents. |
The HRV unit has 2 options that address
defrosting the core in cold weather. The first is an internal
method, to quote the manual: "The thermostat inside the unit will
protect the unit from freezing up under very cold outside conditions.
The thermostat is pre-set at the factory to stop the operation when
fresh air to the house cannot be held above approximately 45F (7C).
When the temperature in your home is 70F (21C) the frost protection can
normally be expected to activate at an outside temperature of 0F (-18C)
or lower." Since we routinely see temperatures below 0F in
the winter. I expect that this feature will be needed. The External method requires that a T be installed in the incoming air
duct from the outside and an electrically operated damper be installed
in the T such that when the unit enters freeze protection mode a signal
is sent to open the damper and mix house air with the external air.
This allows for an uninterrupted flow of fresh air while avoiding
freezing the unit's core. It should also allow for warmer air
circulation.  I ordered a damper separately
and installed it next to the HRV in the incoming cold air line.
The HRV includes a kit of parts to modify a damper to prevent it from
fully opening so that when it is activated it just opens about 20
degrees to
allow a small amount of warm air to enter the incoming airstream.
I could not find a 6" motorized damper on-line, so I got a 5" one and
adapted it using a 6" end cap. |
| I left the HRV running on low speed and used my data logger to document a 24 hour
cycle on October 18-19, 2008 as the outside temperature dipped down to
freezing. I placed the 4 sensors right inside the unit. The
HRV output only dropped to 59F as it used the outgoing heat from the
building to raise the air to the building temperature by 27F in the
coldest part of the morning. Based on the data I have decided to try running the HRV on half speed (52 Watts) from 10:00am to 4:00pm - the warmest times of the day. Running it in the dead of winter when the temperatures here in Maine often remain below 10F at night does not seem wise! This timer strategy will cost me under $2.00/month at my electric rates.  |