Spring is the best time to focus on preparing your air conditioning system for the hotter weather in the middle of the year. This is why we recommend scheduling AC maintenance through our MAX Comfort Plan in spring. It gets your air conditioning system into the best possible shape to sail through the hot weather.
But we’re also concerned about the complete HVAC system in your house. We recommend making updates that can increase proper home ventilation so you enjoy fresher air and reduce the amount of energy you need to put into the AC. Installing an energy recovery ventilator into your HVAC system is a way to make big improvements in your comfort and savings during the summer—and throughout the rest of the year as well.
What an Energy Recovery Ventilator System Does
Also known as an ERV system, an energy recovery ventilator system is a device that pre-cools fresh air entering your home. Imagine if you could open up a window on a hot summer day to allow in fresh air, but the air entering the house dropped in temperature as it came inside so it didn’t make the house hotter at the same time. An ERV essentially does this job by taking the energy already used to cool down the air in the house and applying to the air entering it.
Sounds a bit confusing? We’ll break it down further. The ERV is integrated into the HVAC system so it can draw a current of fresh (but hot) outdoor air into your home’s ventilation system. At the same time, it draws stale (but cooled) indoor air into the ducts. The two streams pass through each other inside the ERV. The fresh air loses its heat to the stale air, and the fresh air cools down. The stale air is sent outdoors, and the fresh air goes indoors—already lowered to a cooler temperature.
Why This Is Beneficial
You pay plenty to run your cooling system during the summer. The ERV keeps this energy from going to waste by using the cooled air in the house to lower the temperature of the incoming fresh air. The ERV can recover more than 80% of the energy that would otherwise be lost. Moisture also moves between the two currents in the ERV. This means that you…
- Enjoy fresher, healthier indoor air, almost as if you opened all the windows in the house
- Don’t pay extra to keep the AC running and running
- Enjoy balanced humidity
Perhaps the best benefit of all is that an ERV works no matter the outdoor temperature. During the winters, cool outdoor air gains heat from the warm indoor air, arriving in your home pre-heated. It’s the same process, only working in reverse.
To find out more about ERVs and other improvements to your HVAC in Oak Park, IL, make an appointment with our specialists. When you call us for your spring AC maintenance, ask us about what else we can do for your home comfort and energy savings.
ServiceMax offers complete HVAC services to Chicagoland. Call our technicians to learn more about ERV systems.