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Increase Your Home Comfort with Fresh Air
Reading time: 3 minutes
Comfort
Just as we change the bath water, we need to change the air.
Homes are full of pollutants, from cooking fumes to cleaning chemicals, and if you don’t have a ventilation system that brings outside air in, your HVAC system is simply recirculating those pollutants throughout your home. Think of the home as a bathtub. Breathing recycled air is much the same as using the bath water of a family member before.
The problem is particularly acute for more modern, energy-efficient homes: with little to no air leakages or drafts, there is far less fresh air mixing in with the stale indoor air.
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Therefore, to ensure you aren’t continually breathing in polluted air, it’s critical not only to incorporate proper ventilation that introduces fresh air from outside, but also to keep air flowing throughout your home.
This whole house ventilation system ensures stale indoor air is exchanged with fresh outdoor air regularly, diluting pollutants and contaminants while extracting moisture.
Fresh air appliances (Heat recovery ventilators (HRVs)/Energy recovery ventilators (ERVs)) do just that — they remove stale air indoors, bring fresh air in, and filter it. This helps dilute pollutants and keeps airflow. It is also conserving as much energy as possible from the tempered air leaving your home.
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They say it is simpler to open windows on opposite sides of the room to bring in fresh air and keep it moving; however, the air coming in through windows is unfiltered, therefore bringing its own set of pollutants.
An indoor air quality solution to this issue includes installing a set of high-grade filters (MERV8 or higher) in your fresh air appliance. These filters capture outdoor pollutants before they enter the interior space.
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If you already have such an appliance incorporated into your heating or cooling system, it’s important that it be powered on at all times, running in ventilation mode to ensure there is a continuous flow of air. Otherwise, having your HVAC system in a standby mode defeats the purpose of having a fresh air appliance in the first place.
In this way, a mechanical ventilation system is similar to other appliances that operate 24/7. For example, refrigerators must stay powered-on at all times to ensure the cavity stays cold and the food stays fresh.
Pond or aquarium pumps run continuously to prevent stagnant water and maintain clean water. Even nature operates this way: The sun shines throughout the day, fueling photosynthesis and countless other elements that sustain life.
Improve Home Comfort
Fresh air isn’t just a luxury—it’s essential to creating a healthier, more enjoyable living space. By integrating a balanced ventilation system into your home, you can reduce indoor pollutants and ensure a constant supply of fresh air.
Whether you’re building new or upgrading your current space, investing in proper ventilation is one of the most effective ways to improve home comfort.
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