Wednesday, December 13, 2017
By John Voket
Recently, sources from Georgia's Eco Custom Homes attended the North American Passive House Conference in Seattle to learn about the latest and greatest in ultra high-performance home construction.Since a key component of a high performance home is "airtightness," efficiency-minded homeowners should know that when it comes to achieving an airtight home, aim for the desirable "Under 2 ACH" (air changes per hour) range. To achieve this, manual ventilation must be supplied to prevent bad, stale air from building up in a home. The most common way of doing this is to add a fresh air vent to the HVAC unit.
But what do you do when the HVAC unit is not operating and no fresh air is being changed? And does this method even supply an accurate amount of fresh air to areas that need it the most?
In states with humid subtropical climates like Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and South Carolina, just the latent humidity load required for ventilation equates to close to 12,000 BTUs on an average home, according to the Eco Custom Homes team.
One solution is adding an Ultra–Aire dehumidifier, which handles both ventilation and dehumidification. But depending on its size, this add-on could cost $4,000 to $5,000 with install.
Soon, air-tight buildings may be able to utilize all-in-one units, which are just starting to come on the market. They reference compact technology unites that provide 12,000 BTUs of cooling, 6,000 BTUs of heating, HEPA filtrations and sensors for VOC and CO2 levels.
Eco Custom Homes says there is no single system available to provide enough heating or cooling for medium to larger homes (over 1,000 square feet) in humid subtropical climates - yet. Within the next decade, and with the attention the issue is getting from passive house builders, be on the lookout for a proliferation of all-in-one systems.
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