Adding Insulation? Then You Need To Consider Ventilation

Fall is a great time to get your home battened down for the winter. If adding insulation is on your list this season, you’ll also want to consider your home’s ventilation system while you’re at it. While it’s great to make your home as air-tight as possible for the sake of energy efficiency, failing to provide adequate air circulation in your home can have serious consequences.

In newer homes, or homes that have recently been insulated and weather-proofed, moisture that occurs naturally within a home can become trapped. Without proper ventilation, moist air may begin to condense as the temperature drops, leaving you with the potential for wood rot or even mold to occur inside your home. Besides the damage this can cause to a home’s structure, there’s also the issue of air quality and the health of the people inside the home. It’s a problem that needs to be addressed — fast!

One solution to maintaining energy efficiency and proper ventilation is to install an air-to-air heat exchanger, or heat recovery ventilator. These systems work to eliminate the stale, moist air within a home while retaining the actual heat being generated by the home’s furnace or heat pump. Air from inside the home is pulled into the exchanger via air ducts throughout the building, usually near high moisture-producing areas like kitchens or bathrooms. This indoor air passes through the unit, which extracts its heat energy before expelling it out of the house. At the same time, the system pulls fresh, outside air into the exchanger, picks up the extracted heat from the indoor air, and continues into the home.

These systems also work in the summer months as well. During A/C season, the exchanger simply reverses the process, passing the cooler indoor temperature to the warmer, but fresh, outside air. With this type of system, it’s possible to retain 80 percent of your home’s heated or cooled air, without sacrificing indoor air quality.

At Blanton’s Heating and A/C, we are experts in the field of ventilation. Contact us today to learn more about how we can keep you energy efficient and breathing easy.