Installing a Single Room Energy Recovery Vent (ERV)

[Daox]

I was poking around on builditsolar.com, and found this nice little article.

Installing an energy recovery ventilator in our home

I haven't heard of or seen these simple one room ERVs before. Seems very straight forward and a nice simple and inexpensive design! It doesn't seem horribly hard to build or design for a seasoned ecorenovator, the challenge really being replicating the ceramic ERV core. A discussion on a DIY version would be interesting.

The article goes into quite some depth reviewing and testing the vent which is really great. He even explains how he modified the unit for better operation. Its a good read for sure.

The unit I purchased installs in a 6" hole in an outside wall and has a small blower fan that exhausts warm air past a ceramic heat storage element. After 70 seconds the fan pauses briefly and then reverses bringing cool air in past the warmed up ceramic cartridge which heats the incoming air.

...

These vents are also engineered to be synchronized as pairs through a five wire cable and dual connectors on the mounting plate. This means that when one is exhausting - the other is bringing in fresh air and the reverse. By doing this the airflow in the house is balanced, overcoming the problem inherent in installing a single unit. If a single ventilator is installed, when it is removing air from the house cold air has to enter the house from other locations compromising the overall performance. Similarly when it is bringing fresh air in, warm air is leaving the house somewhere.

[where2]

Thank you for bringing that up Daox, I read that a few weeks ago and would also welcome discussion about how to build your own. The photo of the ceramic core reminded me of looking through a catalytic converter. I see plenty of places to obtain ceramic honeycomb (other side of the planet), I wonder what the chemical properties of the material they used are?

[Quest]

Thanks for the sharing (and a bit of your writeup)...

Price is reasonable in this case, but it will require a few of these if there's multiple rooms in the house (that needs fresh air).

In my case, my unit is 2000sq ft with 4 bedrooms, 2 storeys. I have purchased a venmar EVO5-500 for the house (still in storage, will install early next year). with careful planning and implementation (need to route the exhaust air intake to the upper story ceiling, close to the master bedroom on the back side of the house)....the price I paid for my unit is just a tad more than these individual unit, so it's still somewhat reasonable.

Can't wait til I can come out with the free time to upgrade my otherwise negative-pressured house (with a cold air intake into the boiler room, etc.)

Q.

[NiHaoMike]

Maybe a few heater cores or similar filled with water can be used instead as the thermal storage medium?

[ecomodded]

If only it removed moisture it would be perfect for My house.
I myself would like to vent humid inside air and replenish it with the dryer outside air which being colder holds less moisture.

If a person ran 2 of them inline it would recover more of the lost heat increasing its efficiency 2 fold (or more)

I am assuming they act as a sponge trapping moisture then releasing it back into the house with the next intake cycle.

[Daox]

If you replaced the ceramic with something like an aluminum piece that would probably do the trick. That would hold the heat, but not the moisture.

[ecomodded]

That idea needs to get developed if its not already available, I had a look online for a small and somewhat affordable heat exchanger with not much luck.

Your idea may be the answer, If the material is available it would be a great diy project.

[NiHaoMike]

Hence my idea of some heater cores or similar filled with water, as water stores heat very well. Maybe some aluminum sheets folded and somehow sealed at the edges would be a cheaper way of doing it.

[ecomodded]

Describe the system in action NihaoMike , I am thinking on it but am unsure how to get the Warmth out of the air before venting ?

[NiHaoMike]

It works the same way, except it would be using the water in between the sheets as the thermal storage medium instead of a ceramic "sponge".