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Auto Balance Air exchanger setting the cfm

Greg808 | Posted in General Questions on

I’m getting an ERV, I had someone come in and they pitched a model. I was concerned about getting a unit that wasn’t oversized, that could scale down for a nice slow continuous rate.

I wanted to check here if this sounds accurate:

The house is 2000 square footage, by his calculations. It sounded like he wanted the air exchanged 3 times, he said the the CFM  target would be 150.

And the system would be the 160cfm AI unit. V160E65RT

When I expressed concern about it being able to scale down enough he said it could with extra controls.

He said the AI system, from Vannee, would calculate how much the house needs so it wouldn’t be going be full capacity. It can figure out how to give just enough even if it is a bigger unit. So it doesn’t matter if it’s bigger with the AI?

QUESTIONS: 

Does a 150cfm on a 2000ft house sounds accurate? I ask because someone else came in earlier and said 100 and then another said 130.  So it sounds conflicting.

Does scaling down to 67 cfm , it’s lowest, sound like a nice subtle rate, if I want it to go all hour without getting too drafty, for a 2000 square foot house? Or is that still high?

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Replies

  1. freyr_design | | #1

    3 air exchanges per hour is a lot. Ashrae recommends 15 cfm per occupant or .35 ach. Even if you did 3 ach for a 2000 sf house with an average of 9’ ceilings it works out to 100 cfm.

    3 ACH seems like a lot of wasted energy even with the most efficient erv

    https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/how-much-ventilation-do-i-need-my-home-improve-indoor-air-quality#:~:text=ASHRAE%20(formerly%20called%20the%20American,air%20per%20minute%20(cfm)%20per

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