MVHR

MVHR (Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery)

What is MVHR?

MVHR is the use of a central air handling unit and ducting system to provide ventilation to a building. Adequate ventilation is necessary to sustain a healthy and comfortable indoor environment for human habitation.

The ducting system is separated into two main lines. Fresh air supply and stale air extract. This allows a continuous supply of fresh air and a continuous extract of stale air from the building ensuring required ventilation rates are achieved.

The MVHR air handling unit has a heat exchanger at its core. The heat exchanger is able to transfer a high percentage of the heat from the stale air into the fresh air. It can be used in large or small buildings. It is more expensive than basic methods of ventilating but crucially it is direct, controlled and much more efficient.

Do I need MVHR?

The answer to this question depends on what you are trying to achieve with your home or building. If your goal is a warm, low energy home then MVHR is the best ventilation solution for you. Since ventilation is one of the main routes of heat loss from your home you need to have thermally efficient ventilation i.e MVHR.

It is hugely important to remember that it’s not all about heat. In fact heat is secondary to adequate air changes. Keep in mind that how we build homes is changing, we are using more and more insulation. If we don’t have adequate air changes we will sooner or later see mould populating the home. This is the last thing we want.

What is Airtightness?

Airtightness is the ability of a home or building to resist the unintended airflow in and out. The unintended airflow is not useful ventilation rather it is a considerable source of heat loss. Poor air tightness will compromise the heat saving effect of your insulation by allowing precious heat to by-pass your insulation.

Should a home be airtight to use Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery?

MVHR can be used where there is a need for ventilation. For example it is common to hear about existing properties that have new layers of loft insulation added and over night the property develops condensation problems. If unresolved the condensation problem will almost certainly lead to mould growth. The solution is to ventilate more, but to ventilate more with basic methods will increase heat loss to a similar level as seen before installing the new insulation. MVHR solves the problem of needing more ventilation to offset the effect of more insulation.

Why contact HomecAir for your MVHR?

We specialise in one-off homes. HomecAir take pride in installing your system. There is no substitute to having your system installed by experts. We have installed hundreds of MVHR systems throughout Northern Ireland and Ireland over the last 17 years with some projects in Scotland and England.

Our typical system will have a Eurovent certified and passive house certified MVHR air handling unit from Villavent. With a number of market leading features including;

• Touch screen controller
• Large surface area, allergy friendly bag pollen filters
• Preset and custom user modes
• Moisture control
• Temperature control
• Modulating heat exchanger
• Automatic summer by-pass
• Automatic smart boost
• Smart phone capability, android and ios app.
• Large diameter, rigid ducting
• ‘A’ energy rating

www.eurovent.eu

www.passivehouse.com