Fresh air: A quality ERV that most can afford?

the build show today one of my favorite topics HVAC systems now we're back at the ready frame house that we build and hopefully you saw our video about that this is a house that Luke one of my project managers is building for his personal family and we're upstairs and we're about to walk into the upstairs mechanical room and check this out we've got some really nice equipment in here but this video specifically we're going to be talking about this this is a brown AI series B150 energy recovery ventilator this is providing fresh air continuously to this entire house this is a beautiful system the thing I like about this is it's more of an every man's system than some of the other ones we've looked at in the past you're talking about maybe three to six thousand bucks installed and in this video we're going to get into all the details how it works ways that you could install it the way you commission it we got all kinds of nerdy stuff today today's buildshare is sponsored by Brown let's get going [Music] all right guys let me introduce you to Ignacio ignacio's with new results AC Ignacio beautiful install on this house thank you Matt really good work now talk to me about this brown Erv I know you've installed all kinds of different systems with all kinds of uh different ducting but what what is it about this brown that you like neat thing about is we got two different configurations with Braun once this up there's another configuration where you can go sideways oh that's nice four factors a lot smaller than although the units would in smaller mechanical rooms it's really easy to install yeah and I got to tell you in in this room it's not a huge room but once you get equipment and it really tightens down doesn't it exactly so having a smaller form factor now that being able to commission and balance it all through either the unit itself or a remote controller makes it so much easier and having a mess with dampers in order to get it let's uh once you pop that door open let's look at that core and I'm curious uh what we need to know about maintenance for a unit like this okay so two watches in the bottom there and you also notice that Nacho's team put a piece of plywood up on the side screwed it to the wall so we've got a nice install off the floor and then this is actually the core on the unit that's doing the moving of both heat and moisture right correct so it actually tampers the air without mixing it so we're removing stale air bringing in fresh air and we're able to filter it through the Merc 13 filter my science has got a Marv 13. as far as and what are the four pipes talk us through that so we got four pipes essentially we got air coming in stale air coming out yep and we're bringing in some of the Stellar from the bathrooms kitchen mud room and then dumping fresh air into the bedrooms that's where we want it right so we're sleeping in the bedroom we're getting that fresh air yeah and I really like that you've got hard pipe going to all these locations that's all rigid metal that's been insulated on the outside is that what I'm looking at correct so that's cutting down on the on the friction so we're able to get the air movement they're moving we need you could have done this in a flux install right correct yeah so value engineer or more of a more affordable instead of going through every room we could tie it into the their HVAC system that cook don't cost and also use you know Flex or something a little more budget or budget oriented yeah I would tell you this is definitely a top of line install you did a great job thank you Matt but this unit itself is not that expensive my understanding this is like maybe 1500 bucks or so for the unit box itself is 15 around fifteen hundred dollars and I don't know I'm sure you know you got the controllers and some extra features yeah but around the 1500 Mark but this install is is not the budget installed this is definitely more of the Cadillac install I suspect uh this is somewhere in the five six thousand dollar range for this install but it could have been done potentially with flex for a little bit less so if you're thinking about one of these units this is definitely as I said earlier a bit of an Everyman option but a lot of houses just have exhaust only strategies so if you've done that in the past remember you've got a budget for this this is definitely going to be more expensive than just an exhaust bath fan and that's it uh trying to put a negative pressure on the house and maybe some April air damper on the fresh air side of the return correct any comments on that well pretty much what we want to do is dilute the air inside the house and get fresh air right the tighter you build a house as as you do yeah the the better you got ventilate the analogy I love nacho is if you've ever been in your your car and your engine's running you feel really fresh in there you know these days I'll take a zoom call in my truck for 30 minutes as long as my engine's going no problem I feel great in there even on a comfortable day where i'm not necessarily using air conditioning but if even if it's nice outside I turn that engine off how long does it take to sit in your car until all of a sudden that air feels stale right exactly and that's what this is this is that little tiny engine only drawing a few watts of power but keeping that air fresh it's as if you just crack your windows on your truck and on the nice day all of a sudden you're comfortable but if those windows are up your house is built tight like it should be and all of a sudden it doesn't take long to get uncomfortable this is going to continuously bring in a little bit of fresh air and exhaust that same amount of stale air out of the house yeah and in a controlled manner right so and also like you've done in other videos uh you can get rid of some of the exhaust fans by doing continuous ventilation that's right yeah I've actually eliminated two or three exhaust fans because we've got this unit going we now see a beautiful work man thank you really impressive thank you Matt let's switch gears and I'm going to Big Travis The Tech Guy in and let's actually talk about commissioning this unit [Music] all right guys let me introduce you to Travis with brown Travis thanks for joining me on the job site brother so tell me about this AI series first off what's the AI meme yeah so AI is for artificial intelligence so this system has built into it technology to help with the commissioning process as well as be able to maintain the overall performance of the overlife it very cool now most of the time we're conditioning this at the end of the project we're still in the mechanical phase here but Travis I brought my little Milwaukee battery uh up here so that we could actually plug it in will you walk us through what commissioning would look like at the end of the job yeah absolutely so in like you said in this case you know we still have some windows missing we still have you know drywall not on so certainly some things can be changing during the overall balancing process commissioning process with the artificial intelligence if I do this balancing today and after the install after Luke's moved in we know that that same balance unseen commission is going to be set regardless of what changes okay both in the interior as well as the exterior that's pretty cool and what does that look like what's actually happening on this controller down here yeah so when you look at the overall unit something that's unique to this product is the integrated LCD screen and the control board itself so once all the ducting is done and the team here has done a fantastic job with this ductwork very impressive love to see this type of work being done so once all the duct work is done you plug the unit in there are no more tools that you need for the commissioning process wow so no flow hoods or anything necessary nope no Magna helic gauges no adjusting of dampers everything is done from the insulin contractor standpoint on that LCD screen through those few buttons that's pretty cool and then you've got another controller that's going to live somewhere in the house as well for this unit too right yeah so we have a number of different optional wall controls main wall controls to give that homeowner a little bit more interaction with that pressure system they can set speeds if they're maybe a way for vacation they can go ahead and put in vacation mode so gives them a lot of flexibility when the overall operation got it now this particular unit talk to me about what normal run time and talk to me about what boost mode means yeah so with a house like this around 3 200 square feet if we do some of the ashrae calculations we're looking at about 70 CFM as what we'd want from a continuous standpoint and then from a max speed standpoint we have a full range in this platform we have units that top out at 110 CFM units that go up to 160 CFM okay so this particular unit being the B150 we'd expect that to be topping out around that 150 CFM range which will be more than adequate for what Luke has here yeah with the guys pulling that staler out of the bathrooms like you said boost mode giving that whoever's using that bathroom be able to push that button let it boost into speed so okay so there's gonna be a button on the wall that would talk back to this unit and say hey kick into high gear exactly some simple thermostat wire that runs down to that boost switch the person pushes that boost switch it's going to boost this into that 150 CFM setting for a 20 minute 40 minutes 60 Minute duration depending on what you you pick and then again we're going to extract that humidity maybe out of the shower area in that time frame and then it'll return back to that continuous CFM setting and then if someone wants to change some of those settings let's say we've got it set up for uh you know this family of four that's going to live here but a single person or a bigger family moves into this house is it possible to change all those settings in the future to go okay we only actually need 50 CFM continuous here or we need 90 CFM yeah and that's the great thing about having the controls built down to the unit you can either do it at the unit itself or you can do it through any of those wall controls that we had talked about previously that's pretty cool um anything else we need to know about install style here Ignacio mentioned this is an upflow and they make some horizontal Mount units other options from Brown are things that we should know about yeah so in the AI series as Ignacio mentioned we have this top Port unit here we have side port units uh in through those different CFM ranges that I mentioned so giving the installer contractor architect engineer flexibility again depending on your mechanical room size you may not always have that necessary space this particular platform is very compact for the CFM that's outputting but we as brown also have both smaller units for lower CFM maybe smaller houses as well as some very large units 250 plus CFM on the residential side big boys yeah let's take one minute and tell us the difference between an HRV and an Erv and people that are watching this are kind of all over North America so which one which model would they want yeah so an HRV heat recovery ventilator that's really where we're dealing with the sensible or the temperature so what the difference is between the outside air and our out in stay away we're moving from the home what that difference is what we're going to recover with a Erv we're also on top of the sensible we're also going to retain latent or moisture so particularly in hot humid South here in Austin we're going to be able to take advantage of that core that you guys had shown being able to retain some of that moisture and taking it out of the Airstream that's entering the home so in general I tell people if you're in the South you absolutely want an Erv if you're in the north you can use an Erv as well but an HRV can be a good budget Choice typically an HRV is going to be a less cost unit because there's less technology involved but you could even still use an Erv in the north the colder the climate the less you necessarily need that Erv typically But ultimately that's a humidity issue and I would tell you if you're in the South like I am you also want to have your dehumidifier and right in front of us here Travis just to make mention of it is your brown 70h model so this is handling the dehumidif vacation for the house even though of course I've got an air conditioner right I've got a Mitsubishi heat pump right behind me this is a separate controller on the wall that says when it's more human in the house kick this on and bring that humidity down and the Erv you always need to remember could in time not could will in time raise the humidity of the house not a ton because it's moving that moisture but some amount and this Erv is not a dehumidifier you're going to not see any drain pipe there whereas this is going to have a drain attached to it and that's going to move the moisture from the air down the drain and that's when dehumidification happens so that Erv is going to do a great job of moving a lot of that latent moisture the water that's in the air as it comes into the house but it's not perfect it's not 100 efficient at that no units are so I think if you're in the South you want to have a separate dehumidifier as well any comments on that yeah supplemental dehumidification particularly during those shoulder Seasons maybe when your Handler isn't necessarily running doing outdoor temperature certainly having the supplemental dehumidifier makes your overall house more comfortable for sure and I always say it's not HVAC it's HVAC plus d heating cooling ventilation and air condition uh that's what we've got here we've got this unit over here bringing and heating and cooling we've got this unit doing the V for ventilation and then this is the D for dehumidification fantastic install by Ignacio any last comments Travis no not at all how can people learn more about your system yep so we can reach out to your website www.rone.com actually one last question before we uh before we wrap Travis how can people or is there any help on your website for sizing of these units and understanding what model that they might want for their house yeah so on our website you get to our fresh air systems page we have kind of run you through how do you size your system what types of systems you can select we also have code tools so if you're in a certain jurisdiction that maybe requires or incentivizes the use of one of systems be able to put in all your you know your location it's going to tell you you know what you need from a system and then ultimately take you to that web page for that product I love it man Travis thank you for joining me on the job site guys big thanks to brone for sponsoring today's video and if you are considering a system I highly highly recommend you consider the bronze these are really really nice systems if you're not currently a subscriber guys hit that subscribe button below we've got new content here every Tuesday and every Friday follow us on Instagram or Tick Tock otherwise we'll see you next time on the build show foreign [Music]

Channel: Matt Risinger

Views: 111,605

Keywords: Matt Risinger, Build Show Network, The Build Show, Build

Id: LGB83pSLMiI

Length: 14min 27sec (867 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 23 2022