Florida homes usually have very effective levels of insulation on them to help keep out the heat during our frequently boiling summers. This insulation is useful as well during the mild winters. But insulation also has an unfortunate side-effect, which is that it prevents the easy exchange of indoor and outdoor air that helps to keep the air inside a home fresh. You can open up windows and doors, but no matter the time of year, this will usually result in energy waste: heat escaping during cold weather, heat entering during warm weather.
There are some solutions to this problem, and one that we recommend you think about installing during the cool weather of the winter is an energy recovery ventilator, or ERV.
What to expect from an ERV
An ERV is a device integrated into your HVAC system that draws in fresh air from the outside, and then either pre-heats or pre-cools it before sending it indoors. By bringing the air closer to the temperature you want indoors at the time, it prevents energy loss from having to run the heater or air conditioner more often.
How does the ERV preheat or precool the air? It’s quite clever: the unit draws a countercurrent of air from indoors and runs it through the outdoor current. If the incoming air is cold, it will gain heat from the stale indoor air. If the incoming air is hot, it will lose heat the other current air. You end up with air exchange and heat exchange, which means fresh indoor air at the right temperature.
An energy recovery ventilator has an added benefit for humidity levels. Since moisture is also exchanged along with heat, the ERV will help balance indoor humidity so your house won’t be too humid in summer or too dry in winter.
Interested in an energy recovery ventilator? Then call on Kool Breeze of Northwest Florida, Inc. today. We serve Pensacola Beach, FL and the surrounding areas.