How does Heat Recovery Work?

The heat recovery unit in a MVHR system prevents the warmth from indoor air from being wasted as it is vented from the house.  Heat energy is extracted from the air and used to heat the incoming air.  This reduces the amount of heat lost from your home, to make the whole system much more efficient.

Why Heat Recovery Is Important

Rising energy bills mean that it costs more than ever to heat our homes.  This cost, coupled with the wider environmental challenges of wasted energy mean that it is more important than ever to make our homes as efficient as possible.  An energy efficient home will save us money and will help us do our bit to slow down the process of climate change.

While traditional ventilation systems such as extractor fans are highly efficient in operation, they have the drawback of simply venting air outside your home.  This removes unwanted moisture form inside the building, but it has the drawback of also taking any heat in that air with it.  That can be desirable in a kitchen or bathroom, where cooking or bathing might raise the temperature, however in other rooms of your house, losing warmth means that the heat will need to be replaced.

Heat recovery systems take the warmth out of the air before it is released from the house and use that warmth to heat the incoming air preventing the loss of energy.

How Heat Recovery Systems Work

Within a whole house ventilation system with heat recovery (MVHR), there are ventilation points in different rooms which either pump in fresh air from outside i.e. living rooms and bedrooms or draw the moisture laden internal air out of the room i.e. from wet rooms like bathrooms and kitchens.

The incoming air is fed through a heat exchange unit where the two sets of pipes are brought together without the air mixing.  As the two airflows pass each other in the heat exchanger unit, heat is released from the warm air due to a large surface area on the piping that is expanded through the use of fins.  This warmth is captured directly into the cooler incoming air.

This type of heat exchange system is highly efficient and can successfully recover between 60% and 95% of energy.

The Benefits of Heat Recovery

The biggest benefit of a heat recovery system within your ventilation is that it reduces waste, however due to the improved air flow that results from whole house ventilation, MVHR also creates a more even temperature throughout your home than would otherwise be the case.

This can help reduce the amount of energy needed to warm your home, as rather than having hot and cold spots due to different sized rooms taking longer to heat, the air is distributed around the house, which means that your heating system works in concert.

Find out More

If you are suffering from condensation in your home and want to find an energy efficient method of preventing it from developing into bigger problems such as damp and mould, please contact us today.  Our local specialists can conduct a free home ventilation survey and provide you with advice about the best system for your needs.