What is Ventilation with Heat Recovery?

Year after year, the major energy suppliers inflate the cost of heating and powering our homes, squeezing the pockets of the average family while their profits soar. It is easy to see why more and more people are looking at ways to reduce their dependence on the fragile National Grid and get more of their own money back from energy suppliers by making energy savings.

Home additions like solar panels or home-scale wind generators can do a lot to get you more energy independence, but these aren’t always suitable for every home and in every location. Home heating bills are a big part of our energy bill, and by making the right changes and using the right technology, any home can reduce its energy bills, and also become cleaner and safer.

Ventilation with heat recovery, sometimes called Mechanical Ventilation and Heat Recovery (MVHR), uses energy-efficient heat exchangers and high-grade air filters to heat and purify the air in your home. These units can achieve massive savings on bills while offering a number of other benefits like improved air quality and increased space in the home.

How Do These Systems Work?

The system is actually very simple, and that is one of the reasons why it is both energy-efficient and cost-effective.

Heat is pumped throughout your home through a network of insulated ducts. The air is drawn in from outside the home, passes through HEPA grade air filters, and is heated. You can get a much more accurate temperature control throughout your home with these systems. As the air is pumped throughout the home, stale air is vented outside, but not before passing through a heat exchanger; this makes the system incredibly energy-efficient.

What Does a Heat Exchanger Do?

Heat exchangers are used in heat recovery systems to reclaim heat from stale air that has already passed through your home.

Rather than allowing the heat in the air to be lost, the stale air passes through a heat exchanger, which transfers the heat to fresh air, without the two airflows mixing. This heat partially heats the incoming air, reducing the amount of heat needed to maintain your home’s temperature. When a ventilation with heat recovery system is installed in a home that also has energy-efficient insulation and windows, home heating bills plummet.

Are Ventilation and Heat Recovery Systems Expensive?

As with any of your home’s systems, the size of your home will influence the cost of the project the most. The cost of renovating a home’s plumbing or electrical system, for example, will cost a lot more in a larger home than a small one.

There are a lot of different systems on the market, and it is important to find the right one for your home. The installation of the system is actually quite quick, and the machinery has a small physical footprint compared to traditional home heating systems, allowing you to reclaim space all across your home by removing radiators and water boilers.  

With a ventilation and heat recovery system installed in your home, you can make massive savings on energy bills, and have more money in your pocket to spend for yourself.