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Comment by space_oddity | Hacker News Reader

Air quality becomes an increasing concern for me. This happened after I went on vacation to the mountains. It seems I hadn't been to the mountains for a very long time and had forgotten how wonderful the air is there. I felt my condition improve. After that, I started thinking about the air quality in my home

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All homes need fresh air ventilation systems - at least here, all new homes are required by code to have it.

ERV / HRV or a static one that goes into your air handler.

Personally, ERV is the way to go. Panasonic makes one that is perfect for the ceilings, and there's Nutone, etc.

If you're in a mostly humid area, like half of the US, It's better money to get a simple ventilation fan and dehumidifier. ERVs won't work half as well for 3-4x price.

I'm still not buying the claims made about ERV efficiency. As a passive device, they could only ever remove half of the excess moisture form the fresh air, and there's no way they're approaching that performance when the air passes through the diffuser in a quarter second.

What’s the setup here with a ventilation fan?

Do you just run a ventilation fan in reverse? And suck outdoor air inside?

I will sometimes crack a window and leave the ventilation fan on, then later run a dehumidifier. But it’s a lot of steps, and it would be nice to automate some of the steps.

I, actually run a 6 inch snorkel out from the basement with fine metal mesh clamped onto the intake. Reduces to 4 inch through the wall, then through a filter box, then through a 200cfm fan. You want 15cfm per person in the building to flush enough CO2. After the two filters, a 200 cfm fan will not be pulling what it’s rated for. You can either use a bathroom exhaust fan in reverse, or you can get quiet enough fans from “indoor gardening companies”. The dehumidifier is standard, nothing fancy.

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