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Blueprint to Breeze: Essentials of HVAC Design for Modern Homes
Reading time: 5 minutes
Safety
Explore the essentials of HVAC design for modern homes, where innovative solutions redefine the 'V' in HVAC, ensuring healthier, more comfortable living spaces while optimizing HVAC efficiency.
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Effectively heating, ventilating, and air conditioning a home requires many moving parts correctly interlocked together to ensure proper operation. Homeowners can choose to have a ducted forced air system (furnace, air handler, etc.) or to have a ductless system (mini-split system) installed to move conditioned air throughout their home.
As design and construction industry personnel, your job is to take into account the best option for the application, as homeowners of an older home may benefit from a mini-split system upgrade rather than installing a complete ductwork system.
Along with conditioned air considerations, the “V” in HVAC cannot be ignored. With homes being built to tighter and tighter guidelines every day, proper HVAC design must have mechanical ventilation to introduce fresh air while keeping the overall HVAC system energy-efficient. Why is fresh air important? It keeps tenants healthy. A 2022 study found by installing mechanical ventilation within school classrooms that “the risk of infection...decreased...at least 80%…”. Knowing this, homes should be equipped to breathe just as healthy as these schools.
Without proper ventilation equipment, most home HVAC systems—unless they have a fresh air appliance or a makeup air system—can only recirculate the current air in the home. Many ventilation solutions are designed to work in conjunction with the HVAC system.
This article details how our ventilation products are integral to a modern home’s HVAC system to keep your customers healthy and comfortable.
Optimizing Indoor Air Quality
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Fresh Air Appliances
For homes with a traditional ducted system (and in certain mini-split systems), fresh air appliances can replace the leaks or cracks in the building envelope by introducing fresh air directly to the main living areas through the return ducts or separate supply duct systems.
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Thanks to the design of counterflow or crossflow cores, by exhausting the warm, stale air through the core, these appliances can successfully filter and temper the fresh, outdoor air before being introduced into the home. Simultaneously, the warm, stale air that passed through the core is now removed from the building’s envelope.
HERO appliance optimizes the current HVAC system from having to condition the air temperature as much as it would have if the homeowner were to open a window or door to let the same fresh air in.
These appliances can be installed in any indoor space if they meet the following guidelines:
Where the space‘s temperature is above 54°F (12°C) (or at a minimum above freezing temperatures)
Where servicing the product is convenient
Near an exterior wall where the weatherhoods will be mounted
Away from main living areas
Where the air quality is sufficient for occupants
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Makeup Air Systems
When exhausting air from a balanced (or slightly positive or negative) home from the kitchen exhaust system, an installed makeup air system (MUAS) activates automatically to bring the outdoor air into the building envelope, accurately matching the exhausted air (according to the IRC, makeup air is necessary when using a kitchen exhaust system that can exhaust 400 CFM or more).
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This process keeps the home’s air pressure system at the intended design levels. Keeping the home’s pressure scheme level is key to having equally balanced airflow throughout all spaces of the home.
Kits like this one include an inline duct fan, a silencer, a filter box (pleated MERV 10 filter), a wall hood, a motorized shutoff damper, a makeup air controller, and 3 pairs of mounting clamps.
Creativity can be Used in this Situation.
The toe space underneath the kitchen cabinets is a great spot.
If there is space beneath the ceiling and above the cabinets, a soffit can be created to “hide” the product and supply air through nice-looking linear slot grilles.
The only exception is placing the product towards the cooking area. There is a thermal plume created by the kitchen exhaust, and if the ventilation system is installed so that air blows into this plume, it can create an indoor air quality problem.
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Balancing Comfort
Inadequate HVAC system sizing can lead to temperature imbalances, but inline duct fans offer a solution, while exhaust systems combat indoor air pollution.
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Inline Duct Fans
Sometimes, HVAC systems are insufficiently sized for the home. Making sure the home’s pressure scheme is balanced can help, but if a room or upper level is too hot (or too cold on the lower level) the ducts may be too small, improperly insulated, or not properly zoned, leading to temperature imbalances.
Therefore, balancing the air pressure won't necessarily address these underlying duct design problems. If this is an issue at your customer’s home, contractors, an inline duct fan installed within the supply ducts can help tremendously to equalize air temperatures. These systems can be integrated seamlessly into the home’s ductwork system to boost airflow.
Exhaust Air
Since indoor air can be 2-5x more polluted than outdoor air, the configuration must include exhaust systems. We offer many solutions for exhaust, see a full list below and view the links for more information!
Final Remarks
At Fantech, we have developed our products to repurpose the “V” in HVAC to mean “Fresh Air Ventilation”. Our products :
Help the ducted system operate smoothly and optimally.
Ensure your customers breathe fresh air that would otherwise be impossible without letting conditioned air out.
Make the professional’s job easy.
Give us a call today to see how we can fix your modern problems with our modern solutions.
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