Panasonic intelli balance 200 ERV controller
Shawnnixon1
| Posted in General Questions on
I ordered this 200cfm ERV but looking at the wall control is it me or there is no option for me to set humidity?
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ERVs/HRVs are ventilation systems not dehumidifiers. In some extent they will dehumidify in the wintertime but just because humidity is low, you don't want to shut off the ventilation.
If you want humidity control, a dehumidifier is a better option.
The ERV should be set up to provide the amount of fresh air your place needs. The only time you want more flow is for boost when you are trying to clear your place say after deep frying. That can be done with a simple timer switch wired to the boost input. These units use standard line voltage controls so any smart controls that has a 0W minimum load (ie relay output) will work.
P.S. There are some line voltage humidistats you can wire in parallel to the boost control input.
I understand they are not humidifiers but why do most controllers have a humidity option? This one doesn’t. Usually it stops taking fresh air if it reached the correct humidity?
I think it looks better to have a fancy controller. Even if you look at the curve of the VanEE smart controller (attached), it seems like it is doing a lot but if you look in detail in a normal house conditions and use it is almost always running in continuous ventilation mode. I use similar controls for mine at home and about the only time it does anything other than setpoint flow rate is when it gets very cold and we are away so the house air dries out.
About the only time you need some controls is if you have high wintertime humidity at which point might as well just leave it on boost.
What does the humidity control do? Stops taking fresh air when humidity is reached in winter? I ordered Vanee advanced controller with v160e75RT but it was 133cfm and canceled due to maybe not being enough and got the panasonic thats 200cfm but dont see any humidity control on the controller
HRV/ERV units are designed to bring in fresh air and recover energy from outgoing stale air.
An HRV can dry your house somewhat in winter by bringing in cold/dry air. No moisture is exchanged...condensate from outgoing stale (moist) inside air in contact with the cold core just drains out. So having a humidity control makes sense for some applications when you are using an HRV. The humidity control typically just control high vs low speed on the HRV. If interior air humidity is above the set point, it triggers high speed fan operation. That's it.
An ERV exchanges moisture and heat via the core..and you have an ERV. So running it based on inside humidity (remember, it's there for fresh air supply) does not make so much sense. That's why you would not control them based on humidity. They typically provide a set of contacts for "boost" operation so that a remote bathroom or kitchen switch can be used (assuming you have supply in bath and kitchen) to trigger high speed operation. In your case, you may want to put a Co2 sensor in your coral room so that boost would be triggered if C02 levels exceed the sensor set point. The ERV does not exchange all the moisture between air flows...just some of it.
Your target is 500 ppm CO2 in Montreal with cold/dry winters which means running a high rate of ventilation. You want the ERV as it will help with excessive interior drying in the winter, and also with humidity in summer as stale air conditioned air (which is dryer) will pull some moisture from incoming air on hot humid days.
Panasonic just told me the reason theres no control over humidity is because its preset meaning if its too humid air outside it wont let that air in??? Does that mean in the summer 90% humidity it will just go reciculating all day!?!
I'm not aware of any Panasonic ERV that will stop air flow on humidity. The ERV by it's nature in summer will dry incoming (humid) air, via the outgoing air flow (dry) and in winter will tend to humidify incoming (dry) air via the outgoing (moist) air.
That said, it is not 100% effective at moisture transfer across the core...just better than an HRV which does not transfer any moisture over the core. If you want to see 500 PPM Co2, then you need to run the ERV all year, 24/7 if your home is occupied and windows are closed.
Hi Dennis
My winter is extremely dry in terms of relative humidity 20% outside and summer is 70-80%
Right now my air exchanger is mixing box VENMAR PRO 200 where the cfm for fresh air is 30-55cfm and stale air is 80cfm and recirc is 160cfm….if i turn that off my co2 goes to 1300-1400, with this on my co2 goes to 900-1100
Your winters are very much like ours. You will find the ERV works well to moderate humidity of the incoming air in both winter and summer Shawn.
The run and boost terminals on that unit are just dry contacts so you can connect an old school 2 wire humidistat if you want to the boost terminals.