Mixing an HRV and exhaust only for ventilation
I posted a couple weeks ago about how I am looking for a solution for venting my new home. It has two bedrooms that are on the second floor of a timber frame building. The master suite which has a basement below is situated in such a way that it is difficult or impossible to duct from the basement area up to the 2 bedrooms in the timber frame portion. This basically leaves me with using the lunos fans or 2 ducted hrv units. It looks like I need a bit less than 100 cfm of air exchange. So I am wondering if I could use the Panasonic intellebalance cold climate unit, setting it up for about 100 cfm on the supply ( ducting this supply into the great room , the central part of the house) then setting the hrv exhaust ( To 50 cfm )And to pull thru the master bedroom and exhaust from the master bath. On the second floor I would install a bath fan with exhaust only set to around 50 cfm also . As these bedrooms are above the great room it should provide decent mixing. I am in zone 5 . It seems this would provide a reasonably priced balance solution, any thoughts or comments would be appreciated .
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Scott,
It looks like the Panasonic Intelli-Balance is an ERV, not an HRV -- unless Panasonic makes both, and I missed one of them. Here are links to a brochure and the installation instructions:
Intelli-Balance ERV brochure
Intelli-Balance ERV Installation Instructions
It seems like the unit can be set up in an unbalanced way -- to provide a greater airflow rate for the supply air than the exhaust air -- if that's what you want to do. Needless to say, if you want to use this approach, verify the airflow rates after installation (since ducts affect the static pressure and therefore the airflow rate).
Thank you Martin, I was using hrv , erv interchangably. My concern is wether this setup would work reasonably. I have a hard time wrapping my head around how ventilation air mixes( or doesn't ) in a home. While perhaps only I can answer that according to my homes layout, it seems like such a dramatic difference from a exhaust only setup in one bathroom, to something like a ducted hrv with a outlet in each room