What kind of ventilation should be used in an energy efficient home?

For two reasons, ventilation is much more important in an energy efficient home than in a traditional home. Why?

In an energy efficient home, ventilation is much more important than in a traditional home for two reasons:

in the general energy balance of a house with good insulation of external partitions, the greatest heat loss is due to air exchange;

The tightness of the building makes it necessary to fully control the supply and exhaust ventilation. In older buildings, even if gravity ventilation was ineffective, leaks in timber structures provided at least minimal air exchange even as a result of wind.

These factors lead to the fact that in energy-saving houses mechanical supply and exhaust ventilation is standard as it provides controlled air exchange and significantly reduces heat consumption. This should already be included in building design, if only because it is a practical problem to install and hide large diameter ventilation ducts. The specialist in this field should take care of the selection of the ventilation unit and the planning of pipe routes.

Air conditioner manufacturers generally boast high heat recovery efficiency measured in laboratory conditions. This is not accurate information for the user. More important is the savings achieved in actual operating conditions. For example, it may be that the heat exchanger has a higher recovery efficiency, but the fans in the AHU consume a lot more electricity in order to overcome the flow resistance that he creates.

Ultimately, the operation of such a device may be less profitable (the price of heat is paramount). Therefore, the control panel is always selected for a specific installation.