Summers in Chino Hills, CA are as hot as they come, and anything you can do to keep your house cool is probably in order. A good air conditioner can be your best friend during the summer months, but without help, it can lead to some very high cooling bills during the summer months. We have a number of recommendations for households to improve their air conditioner’s efficiency, and among the most touted is an energy recovery ventilator, or ERV. How do they work and what kinds of benefits do they bring to your air conditioner? Read on for the answers.
The Basics
ERVs are fairly simple devices, installed in your attic or crawlspace. They consist of two lengths of ducts connected to faces, with a heat exchanger in the middle of both. The ducts themselves never cross streams. One blows stale air out of your home and the other brings fresh air in. The heat exchanger swaps the cool temperatures between outgoing and incoming, ensuring that you don’t lose any of the coldness that your air conditioning system has worked so hard to produce.
The Benefits
The first and most obvious benefit to an ERV is that it lets you keep the air inside fresh without having to open a window. You never want to air out the house in the hat of the day, which can lead to a stale atmosphere and germs circulating through your system. An ERV solves that problem neatly. More importantly, because it keeps the air cold, it helps your air conditioner do its job more efficiently, dropping your cooling bills by up to 40% according to estimates by the U.S. Department of Energy. And the same principles apply in the winter, when you need to keep your house warm. That makes it a sound purchase no matter what the time of year.
Call JC Mechanical today to install a new energy recovery ventilator!