Don West, product manager at Panasonic Ecosystems North America, talks with Green Builder Media editor in chief Matt Power about how energy recovery ventilators work, what recovery efficiency and latent moisture transfer actually measure, and the maintenance, sizing and code drivers behind ERVs in new homes.
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Mike Collignon: All right. Welcome back everyone. We're here on National Ceiling Fan Day. And no, I did not make that up to talk about something a little more advanced. Irving's our guest is here to explain why they're more important than ever in today's homes. He's even brought case studies to show us as well. So who is our guest? Why, it's Don West, product manager at Panasonic Ecosystems North America.
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Mike Collignon: He is focused on advancing energy recovery ventilation solutions, and he's also a dedicated participant with the Home Ventilating Institute, contributing to industry best practices. Joining Don for a one on one discussion is Matt Power. He is the editor in chief of Green Builder Media. It's largely because of Matt that Green Building magazine was named Best Residential Trade Magazine by the National Association of Real Estate Editors for eight consecutive years.
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Mike Collignon: Matt has an award winning nearly three decade career reporting on innovation and sustainability in housing. I hopefully don't go too hard on down here. Matt. Our webinar is brought to you though, by a Panasonic Panasonic Healthy Indoor Living Solutions is helping builders across the country differentiate themselves with powerful, code compliant and cost effective indoor air quality solutions that provide a safer environment for home buyers.
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Mike Collignon: Now, during the course of today's discussion, you can submit questions. For Dan. Simply use the Q&A function located in the menu bar at the bottom of the zoom window. I'll review those questions in. If we have time, I'll pose them to Dan after his discussion with Matt. Matt, take it away my friend.
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Matt Power: Hi everybody. Thank you for taking time out of your valuable day. And, joining us, IRBs are a topic that's near and dear to my heart. I've, installed them, I've used them, and, you know, followed their development over the last decades. And, so, anyway, this this should be an easy one in terms of getting into some deep into some details, but also giving you more of a rounded view of what IRB technology is.
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Matt Power: So Don, thanks for joining us. Welcome.
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Don West: Thanks a lot Matt. And and Mike, thanks for the introduction.
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Matt Power: Appreciate it. So Don, I wanted to first we're going to assume that our audience is, you know, partly professional and partly just sort of what we call prosumer people who are sort of savvy or, you know, homeowners who also want to know about this kind of technology, but they may not be super familiar with, you know, what an ERP is, why you'd want to have one in your home or or why it's, you know, worth spending the money on, that versus some other form of ventilation.
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Matt Power: So why don't we start just at the basics? So give us a little bit of a picture of ERP technology, what it is, what it does, why we want to.
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Don West: That's that's great. Matt is a great a great place to start. And, and being a picture is worth a thousand words. I'll pull up a couple pictures. So I was I.
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Don West: So in talking about, RVs, energy recovery ventilators, it's, in a nutshell, it's two fans with a core in a box. I mean, that's, that that it's rudimentary. But what does it do? It brings it brings fresh air in and it, expels, it expels exhausted air or stale air from the house.
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Don West: And while it's doing that, it's transferring heat and moisture. Between the incoming, fresh air that's filtered and expelling that bad air out. So, as I was, as I was saying, you know, the ERV, it transfers heat and moisture between that incoming fresh air and the outgoing stale air. And it's measured in a, you know, it's, it's performance is measured in a number of ways.
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Don West: One of the, the one of the key components of measuring how it performs is with, sensible recovery efficiency. And this is how well it captures that heat, from the exhaust airstream. And that's, you know, that's during the heating season. And then, and then during the summer months, it maintains that. Cool. Dry indoor air, total recovery efficiency is a measurement used to predict how it performs, in the summer and, or dueling or during the cooling season.
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Don West: And then the, the other big component is managing moisture, and that's that latent moisture transfer. And that is something that, that shows, hey, how fast or how well, this, this ERV, moves moisture because a, again, key component of ERV is it it recovers, energy and moisture.
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Matt Power: Right. Let me let me sort of paraphrase that too, for our sort of homeowner audience. So basically, if you were just to open a window in the summer, you know, in Florida or something and let the air come in, it's coming in hot. What this device does is it takes the air that you've already cooled inside the house, and it transfers the energy between that fresh air and the indoor air.
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Matt Power: So it it saves some of the energy you've already spent cooling the indoor air. So it makes it a lot more energy efficient form of, keeping the air clean, right?
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Don West: Yeah. If you, if you're opening your window that hot, that hot air or that really cold air is just going to come in and, and then your, your Hvac system is going to have to work extra hard to make up for it. We've got a, a little, animation notion of how any RV functions.
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Don West: So air coming in from the left, the lower left, you know, just this is a this is the summer months. You have that warm air coming in. It's passing through that core.
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Don West: And, and as it's passing by, the cold air that's inside the house on the bottom right, and the air doesn't mix. It's just passing by. It's, you know, it's passing by. Each, through each capital record that's in there. And what it's doing is it's it's exchanging that energy and moisture, through that core. So again, this is, the air does not mix, but you're bringing that fresh air in.
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Don West: It's filtering. There's a little, Merv, Merv 13 down in the bottom left there. And, and it before it hits the, before it hits the core and then comes into the, into the home and is distributed. So, again, this is just another way of, of, of bringing, bringing air in, but also maintaining that energy savings.
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Matt Power: Yeah. I should note that the Merv 13 is considered a you know, it's a fairly high, level of media filter. It will filter out most particles. You know, it's not a dedicated filter, but you are going to get a it does do a little bit of air scrubbing of the indoor air as it's coming in.
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Matt Power: So yeah, 13 is a little higher than I've seen other, you know, devices from other companies that are that use lower, lower level filtration. So that's a pretty high level of filtration in this one.
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Don West: Yeah. The the go ahead. Just a just a touch on the, the, you know, the Merv. So you know, we we do have other filters that are available, you know. But the Merv eight, you know, that's going to take care of like your general mold spores dust mites, you know, dander, from pets, you know, pollen, that kind of thing.
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Don West: Merv 13 is going to get those smaller particulates like the, you know, whether it's, smoke from tobacco or, or even even, wildfire smoke on the outside.
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Matt Power: Right, right. Now, there's another aspect to this, which is, for the professionals in the audience, that the building codes have become more strict about ventilation over the past, say, ten, 15 years. So why don't you give us a breakdown, if you would, about how IRBs make it easier now to meet the current building codes in terms of ventilation.
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Matt Power: I mean, there's other ways to do it, but IRBs seem like the sort of the the easiest no brainer and sort of nice, clean, sustainable method.
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Don West: Definitely. The, just a just a quick look at some of the codes on the right. You know, we have our IRCTC, the, 2015, was the call for, mechanical ventilation, supply exhaust or a combination? There wasn't a call for any RV. Right. You know, there was, there was that, and, and in 2021, IEC CRC kicks it up a notch and now they say, okay, zones seven and eight.
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Don West: So that top part of the country, the the purple and the and the, and the dark gray up. And so you're talking like the top of Minnesota, some parts of Colorado, Alaska, you know, they're, they're now requiring the RV. So it's called for in the, in the code 2020 anymore. I'm sorry.
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Matt Power: I'm sorry. You could kind of see that, but you can see it. The direction this is going is it's not it's not going to get less strict. Probably. It's going to probably keep drifting south. Right. So yeah.
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Don West: And and that's what it's looking for looking at in 2024. Now we're drifting down to, to to zone six. So we'll have to see what you know, as the, as the, as the code progresses, I don't think it's going to go any higher. It's going to keep drifting, lower in the States. No, RVs are not required for the the lower, the lower zones.
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Don West: But, there have been studies out there that show, it's it's a good recommendation for, you know, those zones, you know, 1A2 way those, those hot, humid climates, where they, where those, you know, you have hot weather, where moisture management is key.
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Matt Power: Right? Right. And, you know, there's, there's a couple of different aspects. There's along with this, you know, filtration, there's diffusion. Right. So can you maybe just quickly touch on what's the difference between diffusion and filtration for people?
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Don West: So, diffusion what you're doing is, you're, you're actually, you know, you're diluting the air. So in other words, you know, you're trying to push out all that bad air, CO2, VOCs, all the bad stuff that gets trapped in your house because houses are built a lot tighter. Now, you want to diffuse and and lower the levels of those by bringing in that fresh air and trying to expel, the, the bad air filtration.
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Don West: We're going to be, you know, now we're actually trapping those, those elements in the filter rather than, trying to expel them.
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Matt Power: I wanted to tell a quick story, so I installed I had a small house in Florida a few years ago, and I was had my wife and I were having trouble, sleeping, and we installed it early. It was a cement block house. And I happened to have one of the new air monitors. I think it was a either, in a way or a few, but.
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Matt Power: So I did it before or after, what happened when I installed the Erb? So what it did was it brought fresh air into the whole house. And, you know, we had tried other things like opening windows and that wasn't working for. So let me let me show you, my results here.
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Matt Power: All right. So it should pop up with a little chart. So on the left is before the ERV. And, this, you see the 1460 parts per million? That was a bedroom. So we were waking up with headaches, you know, not feeling well, etc.. But this was immediately after installing the RV on the right.
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Matt Power: It dropped it, more about 600 points per million down. Consistently and dropped the overall level of pollutants during the day. And that was strictly with diffusion. And that was actually a panel. So that was one of your earlier like you're in was it the Intel? 100.
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Don West: Tell.
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Matt Power: You years ago. Yep yep yep. Anyway, just wanted to have that little anecdote because I have had personal, good experience with those, you know, really helping out with indoor air quality.
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Don West: No, that's, that's great news to hear. I mean, the and the Intel bounce is very strong product. It's been around for years and, and continues to perform. So.
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Matt Power: You have some new products you've got, like you said, you've got some new stuff. Both both recent and you've got some stuff coming out soon that you can't really get into the details on. So why don't you show us what you can show us and maybe hint at what you can't?
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Don West: Yeah. No problem. Just.
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Matt Power: All of which do you share? Of course.
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Don West: Yep. Coming up.
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Matt Power: Right.
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Don West: So, our current lineup, and actually the one the one of you have is right there, the Intel Balanced 100. That's, but going from left to right, pretty much smallest to largest. And, our whisper comfort, that had a that had a refresh, a couple of years ago got larger was a 40 CFM unit, and now there's a 60 CFM unit.
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Don West: So this is more of a spot, a spot or, small home air RV. It's, you know, the great part about this one is it's it looks like a big ceiling fan is what it looks like. And, there's only two, two lines. You need to run for it. So for smaller footprints. Definitely. Definitely to go to the Intel balance that you've got, Matt.
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Don West: Which is right there. We've got several models in that, in that line. We've got hardwire, we've got, we've got, corded. And again, a, a big performer for a number of years. Our most recent launch was for the, the single family homes. It was our balanced home series. We've got, we've got four different, CFM ranges, and they come in, 120, 130, 150 and 160 CFM.
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Don West: So, we, we pretty much premiered these at, at the builder show in R and, really got it, really got a great response. And we're continuing to build on that. And our largest model, the Intel Balanced 200, for the, the really big footprint. You know what? We're, I would say in probably the next week or two, you're going to see, some additional products, some additional RVs coming from our, coming from Panasonic.
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Don West: And, we're really excited to, to fully announce those. But, again, just wanted to tease them a little bit at this, at this, at this webinar. So look for something, look for something big coming with, with bigger and better performance and, and some CFM increases like that.
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Matt Power: Is that in a matter of weeks or a month or two?
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Don West: You're probably talking a week, maybe two.
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Matt Power: Okay, now, there was another issue that came up recently with all the, the wildfire smoke that's been going around. And I know, you know, the Merv that 13 can catch, you know, some of that, but say it's extreme and say you've got real bad outdoor air. There was some some worry about, well, what happens if my ERV is bringing in, air that's full of wildfire smoke?
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Matt Power: But you actually doesn't. Your product has some kind of solution for that, right?
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Don West: Yeah, absolutely. So we've got, Well, our our balanced home series, the one that we just launched has a, it has, research mode. So, there's a couple of aspects to this.
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Don West: I'll show you how it works or slide. Okay. So, if the if there is wildfire smoke outside, you can put the, you can put the balanced home ERV into research mode, and you see the, the the, the dampers on the left closing. And so they're closing off the outside air. And then what happens internally, there is a, you know, the damper opens.
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Don West: And now what it will do is it will recirculate the air within the home. And while it's doing that, it's pushing it through the Merv 13. That's in there. So, so you're getting some filtration through there and you're also, you know, you're preventing any further, smoke from coming in. So it's, it's a pretty neat feature.
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Don West: And, if we, if we get to look at some other, other, other, other aspects of the balanced, there's, there's interesting ways to, to actually control it. So,
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Matt Power: And I will say having, having installed a couple of them, I mean, I'm not a, you know, Hvac technician. They're pretty easy, especially, you know, they can be a DIY project. It's a little bit, maybe a little advanced DIY, but they're certainly not, you know, any contractor, you know, can can handle this. The the installs are not super complex in my experience.
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Matt Power: So also I will say the units I was concerned the units might be noisy. They're very quiet. You have the those have inverter type thing, motors in them.
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Don West: Yeah. Yeah. They have so every one of our RVs that was on that screen, has we have two ECM motors in there. So these are, these are DC motors. They have, they have a number of, of, really good efficiency ratings. And again, they're, it's something that, you know, they're brushless motors and, and what they do is they basically have a power inverter and they're converting from AC to DC, and one of the other, in addition to that, the motors are powered with, or they're, they're controlled by smart flow technology, which is something that Panasonic has had.
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Don West: And what that does is, it it's we want it sees static pressure. It's going to overcome that. It will it will see it and then it will ramp up, to, to to get where it has to be. It's, one of the, one of the little sayings. It's like, what's with Panasonic? You get what you set.
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Don West: So right, if you're setting it for 100 CFM, you're going to get 100 CFM.
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Matt Power: Yeah. And you can operate it 24 hours a day if you want, at a low speed. Very. Really. Energy efficiency, I don't think I even hardly saw a bump in my electric bill.
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Don West: Oh. Absolutely. Did you know you.
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Matt Power: Had a little data, didn't you? An ROI I before you. Why are you pulling that up? So I want to respond to somebody who posted in the chat, that they, they've had trouble getting homeowners to see the value, you know, in the reason. And I think it's an education thing. Right. It's it's they don't know really what any RV does or why it's important and that sort of thing.
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Matt Power: And I think we're both on the same page. We're trying to get people to be more aware, but the health benefits and for builders, you know, it's going to solve code issues. So is there other what are the other sort of talking points that could help somebody who's really maybe maybe they're a builder, maybe they're a contractor.
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Matt Power: They're trying to talk a client into any RV. What's the number one thing that might that might turn their head?
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Don West: So, if, well, first let's talk about cost. Right. So, you know, that's everybody's concern. And so basically here's a here's a quick sheet on, on, on cost if you're running a supply fan and an exhaust fan and these are efficient ones, a well, what's it's going to cost you roughly $37 a year to run.
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Don West: So, but with that, you're not tempering the air. So you're good. You. So your, Hvac unit is going to have to, to work overtime. I have the I have the new Jersey utility rates here. Yeah, $0.18. And then, the if you're running an RV 24 over seven, you know, it's 60 CFM, you know, kind of a mid range, you know, $63.
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Don West: So basically it would cost you $25 more, 60, $63 a year. So again, not not a big expense.
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Matt Power: We but we've done a lot of research on consumer behavior too. And one of the things that we know is people, for example, don't use their kitchen rangers. Right. So they almost never like like 70% their standard people never touch their range hood. And you're throwing all these pollutants into your house. An RV isn't designed to, you know, it's not supposed to replace arrangement.
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Matt Power: But at the same time, if you've got an RV running all the time, even the bad behavior, of the homeowners can be compensated for somewhat because it's going to keep diffusing, it's going to keep moving that air. You know, you got a teenager that's taking an hour and a half long showers, putting all that moisture in the air, not not running a bath and or doesn't have an automatic bathroom in it.
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Matt Power: It starts to bat. It balances out the air in the house, sort of, without you having to attend it right?
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Don West: Absolutely. The. Yeah, some of, our, all of our RVs have a boost function. So when your, when the, when those things occur or when I cook, you know, you know, I don't tend to do very well. And there tends to be and really, you know, yeah, there's a lot of smoke, VOCs, particulate matter just goes flying through the air.
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Don West: And, you know, you have you have air sensors in your home. I have them, I have them in mine. You can tell when something when you're cooking. I mean, you can see those those levels rise and it's, you know, regardless of if it's an electric or a gas stove, you're still going to get those elements of particulate matter that are floating.
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Don West: That's.
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Matt Power: What your childhood asthma. Right. It's one of the main causes. Yeah.
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Don West: Absolutely.
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Matt Power: So this this pressure balancing also can it does other things. Right. So for example, if you live in the northeast and you've got gas like a gas boiler, you know, if you get an air imbalance, your gas boiler can actually backdraft. Right. So you so this can help compensate for those dangerous, situations where you get pressure imbalances in different parts of the house.
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Don West: Right. You know, if the, you know, if you're running an exhaust only strategy, that can, you know, that can contribute to negative pressure in the house, especially if the house is tight. And, that could cause issues with, with fossil fuel powered, appliances. You know, supply only, you know, the other the other technique, you know, then now you're just bringing air in and, it can be tied to like the, the Hvac unit, but, you know, again, you're you're still, you're now you're pressurizing the house.
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Don West: You might over pressurize your RV's are probably your best bet for, you know, keeping that balance of of positive and negative pressure. And they can be dialed into, you know, you know, they can you can you can up it a little bit on the pressure side if you want. And again, every house is different. So, you know, your, your Hvac professional will be able to do that for you.
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Matt Power: What about you know, we live in this time when temperature extremes seem to be ever more extreme. Is there an argument one way or another about, you know, whether RVs are maybe more important now that temperatures are so high in the outdoors? You know how does that work out in terms, or does it make a difference within the RV?
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Don West: Well, as a as we were talking about earlier, you know, in the in the southern states, you know, where there's a lot of moisture, you know, RVs are certainly, a welcome addition. And in the north in Canada and, in the northern U.S., and in those extreme areas, you know, the your best bet is to get an RV that has that negative, -13 degree Fahrenheit rating from the Home Ventilating Institute.
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Don West: And, just a, a little, a little plug for the Home Ventilating Institute. This is, this is the, the the body that, that measures the performance of RV. So all of the data that I have, the data that, that, that I've shown and will show, all that comes from RV, and it's, it's on their website.
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Don West: So you can, you can see how, how, how we RVs stack up against each other and also against RVs as well.
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Matt Power: Right. And so that's good. That's good. Segway. So we often have a little bit of confusion about difference between ERV and an RV. So right. Except for us what's what's the difference.
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Don West: So RVs, they they came first. They were basically an RV is an RV. However, it can only move, it can only move, heat and energy. It cannot move moisture. So it's not going to have any effect. And, they, they, they require a condensation line to be attached because there's that, that moisture just gets, it's getting dumped so it, it can certainly it can.
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Don West: They can dry some you can dry homes out in the, in the winter. If they're, if they're not careful. But you know, they were the predecessor to the RV and the, the, drv these are, have really come a long way from their first, the first models that came out.
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Matt Power: Now, you don't need a condensation line within the RV, correct?
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Don West: Correct, correct.
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Matt Power: Because it's. Why is that?
00:25:01:17 - 00:25:19:11
Don West: Yeah, it's it's it's managing that moisture, through the, through the core. So the core, the core has, has a certain ferocity to it, that allows the, that allows the moisture molecules to flow through, whereas the, the RV does not.
00:25:19:13 - 00:25:30:09
Matt Power: Now, one thing that might scare homeowners off is they're like, oh, no, what do I have to switch filters on this thing? Do I have to maintain it? What's the actual maintenance of any RV like?
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Don West: Pretty similar to your to your furnace filter. You know, maintenance, however the, the, the basic maintenance for, for an RV and, and RV is, you're replacing your replacing the filter, for ours, we have an indicator that that will, that will that will notify you 90 days to check. Okay. So you check your filter and then a it's six months, you replace the filter, but whether you needed to or not, other other things to do.
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Don West: The basic vacuuming of the core, most of these have access doors where it just comes right off. Very easy to do. And, take the core out and vacuum it, hours. You don't wash, you vacuum. And, it's again, it's it's really easy. The other I guess the last thing is the outside ducts where it goes to the outside, of the envelope, to make sure those aren't blocked right or out or have any critters in them.
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Don West: Right.
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Matt Power: Right, right. Now, I remember I asked one of your Panasonic guys one time about what happens if, you know, however many years if the core was damaged or you want to replace it. And they said it is actually possible to replace a core.
00:26:43:02 - 00:27:03:14
Don West: Oh yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. The cause are replaceable. We have, we maintain service parts for, for a long time, and we, and, but but on top of that, you know, I think the core warranty, the core warranty is six years. So, you know, we, we do stand by it.
00:27:03:16 - 00:27:20:25
Matt Power: Yeah, yeah. Now, let's talk about retrofit a little bit. I mean, sure, you know, I know we sort of ain't. We've been aiming towards new construction, but, you know, I've done a couple of retrofits. It's a little. I think it's a little harder. But talk about if somebody how would somebody retrofit. Do they put this in a utility room.
00:27:20:25 - 00:27:29:10
Matt Power: Do they put it in the attic. You know, where's it go? Give us some cost estimates. Give us whatever information you want. That might it might help people make that call.
00:27:29:12 - 00:27:54:10
Don West: Sure. And of course, I have a picture. That'll help. So the as as we were discussing earlier, the Ncvhs can work with or without an air handler. So they can they can run independently. So, to you to the left is a, a fully, fully ducted dedicated, installation where you have any RV and you're just going to run it.
00:27:54:10 - 00:28:00:18
Don West: And this is, this is, mainly or it's it's probably more prevalent for, for new construction.
00:28:00:20 - 00:28:01:26
Matt Power: Yeah.
00:28:01:29 - 00:28:21:09
Don West: You have a retrofit over on the right. You can you can run the, ERV through the air handler. And this is just one of the methods, you know, kind of it's kind of shown there. There's a there's a couple different ways to do it, but, you know, if you have, you know, you have a traditional air handler, a unit you can certainly run it through that.
00:28:21:14 - 00:28:37:15
Don West: And that's probably your best bet as far as, yeah. Yeah. Because it's going to, you're going to use that existing ductwork and it's, you know, and utilize the air handler. So it will actually turn the air handler on when needed, to help push that air through.
00:28:37:15 - 00:28:59:14
Matt Power: Yeah. Okay. So for those of you who aren't, you know, in the trades, may not know what the air handler is. So that's, that's usually that big box with a fan in it that's connected either to your furnace or your heat pump. The blows the air around in your ducts. So this would go right into that box, and be part of your existing, like, whole house cooling or whole house heating.
00:28:59:16 - 00:29:08:26
Matt Power: You wouldn't have to add necessarily add different, you know, ducted, you know, vent openings in different rooms that you just use your existing system.
00:29:08:28 - 00:29:20:07
Don West: You know, the, the, the, the, the additional duct runs would be to the, to the outdoors. As it does, it shows over on the left. That's what I was referring to earlier, you know, to make sure those to stay clear.
00:29:20:09 - 00:29:45:04
Matt Power: Right, right. You know. Yeah, I mean, I, I think I've had my 5 or 6 years and I've never had to actually clean the outdoor ones yet, so, you know, but but you never know. So in terms of, like automation, are there any automate automatic features like I think you have, do you have some partners that you work with that where you can have, you know, if one system calls this one can be turned on that sort of thing.
00:29:45:06 - 00:30:13:04
Don West: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So we've, we've partnered with, well, we've got a couple, couple of aspects of controls for, for RVs. So, over on the, let's talk about the, a lot of the automation portion. We for the new balanced home, RVs, we have, a Wi-Fi module. And what that will do, it gives you it gives you an app so you can control the RV.
00:30:13:06 - 00:30:39:01
Don West: And in addition to that, utilizing, switch it, switches and, and sensors, you can actually boost that RV, you know, on the fly, you know, the air that particular the particular, switch that with the little waves that's an air quality sensor detects, you know, calculated VOCs or VOCs and calculated CO2, and it will boost.
00:30:39:01 - 00:30:50:16
Don West: So when I'm cooking, it will sense it and it will turn and it will boost steady RV to, to whatever you have your boost set at, whether it's the top or something else. What's,
00:30:50:18 - 00:31:08:20
Matt Power: One of our, one of our audience members, Kate, was asking about, which air sensor like I'd use in my project. So this is this is Panasonic's partner. It has built in air sensor in that device, which also is linked, can be linked directly to the Panasonic. Are correct.
00:31:08:20 - 00:31:10:26
Don West: Yeah. Why buy via Wi-Fi?
00:31:10:29 - 00:31:13:22
Matt Power: Yeah. Yeah, it's that's handy. Yeah.
00:31:13:25 - 00:31:51:14
Don West: The, the other interesting, thing that we've done with the, with the Wi-Fi module, you know, we've got, you know, we have other products too. We have our whisper green select and our whisper fresh select. So these are that's our bathroom premier bathroom fan. And the fresh select is a supply air fan. If you're utilizing either of those in particular the whisper green and you're utilizing the balanced home with and all of them have the Wi-Fi module, plugged in, it will actually it will actually balance if you activate two whisper greens at 50 CFM apiece and you have the RV running, it will actually it will actually lower the
00:31:51:14 - 00:32:02:09
Don West: supply and lower the exhaust and raise the supply to, to actually sell balance within the, within the home utilizing that, you know, the whisper green and the balanced home.
00:32:02:10 - 00:32:07:08
Matt Power: That's cool. Is that a fairly I didn't see that feature. I went to the show last year. Is that it's.
00:32:07:11 - 00:32:24:01
Don West: It it's fairly new. With with the balanced home, launch back in February. That's, that's kind of when we, we took part in that and, and I would suspect if I was a betting person, that may be the new stuff that's going to be coming. May also have that functionality as well.
00:32:24:01 - 00:32:31:09
Matt Power: Right, right. So you can tie them. They all they all intersect in the Wi-Fi app. So and they sort of talk to each other.
00:32:31:12 - 00:32:43:10
Don West: Correct. And you can if and really the the amount of automations you could set, you can you can really you can really have, you know, you can make it as sophisticated or as basic as you want.
00:32:43:12 - 00:32:54:11
Matt Power: Can you use these, you know, or are builders using them in multifamily projects as well? Like, are you seeing installations and, you know, apartments, condos?
00:32:54:13 - 00:32:55:06
Don West: Oh, absolutely.
00:32:55:06 - 00:32:55:24
Matt Power: Yeah.
00:32:55:26 - 00:33:19:29
Don West: Yeah. The, I was actually at a, I was at a site out in, in Minnesota, the, utilizing our, our, our whisper comforts out there. The the Intel balance is a is a really big multifamily, product that, because of because of its low profile, it can you can pick and work in those, in those drop ceilings.
00:33:20:01 - 00:33:28:11
Don West: So again, that's, multifamily as we have a very large following in multifamily for, for the Intel balance and the and the comfort.
00:33:28:14 - 00:33:39:20
Matt Power: So I'm a, I'm a developer and I'm building a multifamily, that haven't installed the RVs before. Tell me why I should have RVs in my, 100 unit building.
00:33:39:23 - 00:34:04:13
Don West: Well, first thing is it, well, it might be code driven, so that's, that's true, but that's your that's your first. That's your first checkbox. Yeah, but but also by, by managing moisture within, within the envelope, it's going to help maintain that unit. It's going to help, preserve the, the, the, the fixtures and everything else by, you know, again, managing moisture if, you know, you have it running constant.
00:34:04:13 - 00:34:22:02
Don West: And like you said, you don't have to have it running at 100 CFM. You know, the all these can run low and slow, you know, 30 cfm constant and with, with a with a boost as needed. But again, for, for multifamily and the other the big aspect is for the homeowner or for the occupant. Yeah.
00:34:22:05 - 00:34:23:00
Don West: You know, whatever.
00:34:23:00 - 00:34:23:17
Matt Power: Yeah.
00:34:23:20 - 00:34:27:23
Don West: They're going to get it. They're going to get that fresh air, you know, constantly provided.
00:34:27:26 - 00:34:50:18
Matt Power: Have you guys done any research? I'm sure you have on, on, what people, whether they notice, you know, indoor air quality and and do they, are they interested, you know, the actual end user, say a tenant or whatever? Are they going to is it is an apartment that's got an RV going to be a little more attractive than one that's not or is it on their radar yet?
00:34:50:21 - 00:35:08:12
Don West: I think it's getting there. You know, again, when you have, when you have, you know, close occupancy, you know, you want to have you want to be able to expel, you know, various, odors and smells and, you know, everybody, you know, anybody that cooks like me, you know, you don't want you don't want them as your neighbor.
00:35:08:12 - 00:35:15:11
Don West: But unfortunately, I'm not a good cook. So, you know, you want those, you want those, smells out of the house?
00:35:15:13 - 00:35:34:07
Matt Power: Well, I would think to it as a landlord to to keep your property values. If you're tenants, you don't know what your tenants are. Do I know the running arrangement? Are they are they in there for five years cooking with no arrangements? Because I would think you could avoid some property damage. Or repainting and recoding and that sort of thing by keeping the air moving.
00:35:34:10 - 00:35:49:25
Don West: Absolutely. Yeah. That's that that's the diffusion, right. You're just using whatever's in the, whatever's in that apartment and, you know, keeping, keeping the, the the keeping the walls. Nice. Keeping the, the fixtures nice, you know, avoiding that moisture damage.
00:35:49:27 - 00:36:06:01
Matt Power: Right, right. And and there's also the, I guess especially it depends on the climate, but the mold issue, if you want to keep mold, you know, out of your house, you want to keep that humidity level down, you want to keep the air moving. Right. So so that's a there's a mold deterrent aspect, right?
00:36:06:01 - 00:36:22:08
Don West: You know, humid, you know, high humidity. You know, you're going to have mold. And that's never, you don't want to call back for that. You don't want to you don't want a call from a tenant about that. Then again, keeping that air moving, moving, diffusing, again, it's, I think it's a win win.
00:36:22:10 - 00:36:33:28
Matt Power: Yeah. Where is the, the biggest area right now for you where with these products? You know, what part of the country are people, you know, moving into RVs the most quickly or.
00:36:34:00 - 00:36:52:11
Don West: Again, a lot of the a lot of it's code driven. So we see the northeast, we see the, Pacific Northwest, you know, we've got Minnesota, New York, you know, the those, you know, a lot of the code driven states. And now we're seeing, you know, some of the southern states, whether it's not code driven, but, they're going to see the benefit of that.
00:36:52:14 - 00:37:15:08
Don West: Of an RV with, with moisture management. Right. And although, you know, we talked about, you know, studies, one of the one of the projects we have now in, in Texas is, it's a it's a, a project home and, really the, the amount of moisture that the RV is taking care of.
00:37:15:11 - 00:37:34:10
Don West: And when I say taking care of managing, has pretty, pretty much, pretty much just, rendered the dehumidifier not needed. It's it's had a and this is in, an extremely humid area. And it's, the the humidity has been 60% pretty much year round.
00:37:34:13 - 00:37:56:23
Matt Power: That's interesting. You know, because there are a lot, a lot of people, really into basement living. But in my experience, you know, having having both built and rebuilt basements and lived in them, never quite. It's just so hard to keep the moisture out of them and, you know, to condition that. Could any RV be maybe a solution people haven't thought of or, you know, helping condition a basement area?
00:37:56:25 - 00:38:14:10
Don West: Oh, yeah. So, so, you know, I've heard I've heard from from our, from our sales force a lot of a lot of people are using it, maybe a big single family home. But then what they'll do is they'll put a whisper comfort in the basement. Yeah. To help with the a moisture and be fresh air.
00:38:14:12 - 00:38:17:29
Don West: Sometimes. Sometimes the basements aren't that ventilated. Ventilated.
00:38:17:29 - 00:38:33:09
Matt Power: Very well. They'll stop it. Yeah. And, and and it helps. And by dropping the humidity level in the house, a little bit, does that affect the does it actually drop your Hvac costs. Cooling costs. Because is the Hvac not working as hard or does that make a difference.
00:38:33:11 - 00:38:47:11
Don West: Well it's certainly going to reduce the load on the on the Hvac unit. So just it kind of like when you have a, you have a window unit and and you turn that on, it takes a while for it to get going. And, you know, if you have a, if it's a hot, stuffy room, what?
00:38:47:11 - 00:38:55:28
Don West: It's going to do it. It's, by having less moisture in there. Basically, it's taking the moisture out, you know, with, with an AC. This is going to help manage that.
00:38:56:00 - 00:39:13:22
Matt Power: Yeah. And I think, you know, some people may have no idea. And you don't don't need to get into specifics of cost, but I think they're not as expensive as people believe them to be. I mean, if I can say, you know, my DIY, which had no, no installation cost, I think was 12 or 1500 bucks, maybe less.
00:39:13:24 - 00:39:19:29
Matt Power: And I know the newer models might be more than that, but I mean, it's it's not a, $10,000 right up to what I.
00:39:20:01 - 00:39:24:14
Don West: No, no, no, no, I think you're right in the ballpark as far as as far as cost.
00:39:24:17 - 00:39:26:07
Matt Power: Of raw cost anyway. Yeah.
00:39:26:13 - 00:39:32:00
Don West: And then and then depending on your contractor, you know, and what and what type of install it is. So. Right.
00:39:32:07 - 00:39:40:03
Matt Power: Right. So you know, compared with almost anything else, solar panels, redoing a bathroom now is I think, you know, upwards of 30,000 bucks.
00:39:40:08 - 00:39:42:23
Don West: Yeah. I was I was going to guess 25, but yeah. Yeah.
00:39:42:29 - 00:39:53:09
Matt Power: So you know, everything's going up, but it's a pretty it's a pretty manageable cost in terms of the improvement over in overall life quality that you can get out of it.
00:39:53:09 - 00:40:04:25
Don West: I think when people are retrofitting, whether it's bathrooms, kitchens or, help protect that with a new RV, you know, to protect that investment. It's a, it's a it's a very small addition.
00:40:04:27 - 00:40:29:25
Matt Power: Yeah. Now we, we dealt with a, a company that they actually don't put range hoods in and they put, they use the RV in the kitchen. I'm and I'm not sure about that. There's kind of a it's innovative, but I'm not sure if it's the best approach to, to push pushing the RV that hard. But I mean, I think I think of it more as a backup for the kitchen and a way to balance things as opposed to a primary, you know?
00:40:29:28 - 00:40:47:29
Don West: So yeah, it's a it can certainly help. It, it shouldn't be directly in the kitchen. And actually we in our, in our installation instructions, we have we're, we're specific as to, you know where to pull from. But but again it certainly does help, especially when, when, culinary mishaps occur.
00:40:48:00 - 00:40:58:11
Matt Power: Right. Hey, take a look at your slides there. I just wanted to make sure. Was there any other categories or, stuff we we, that you wanted to chat about, about to bring up. Yeah.
00:40:58:15 - 00:41:27:11
Don West: Yeah, actually, yeah. So there was, let me just get this go on here. So we were talking, and I just wanted to talk one more, one more minute about the rocket. So we were looking at our our, you know, our portfolio. Yeah. Just to highlight the balanced home, and we were talking about the, you know, I gave the, the preamble of, hey, here's the here's the sorry.
00:41:27:11 - 00:41:49:29
Don West: So this is the sensible recovery, 82 very good numbers. So these are very good numbers. The one thing I did want to say and show and again, this is, this is taken from HPI data. Is that installed performance aspect or you know overcoming static pressure. So the static pressure is measured in water gauge 0.1. And this one actually went up to 0.6.
00:41:49:29 - 00:42:08:16
Don West: We do test higher than that. But just as a for instance, point six, a pretty good amount of static pressure and static pressure happens when you have a lot of bends in your, in your, ductwork or, you know, maybe some high 90s instead of being more tapered. We only lose six cfm from, from the top.
00:42:08:16 - 00:42:31:07
Don West: So again, we're, we're losing a very low amount, you know, 3.7%, at the, at point six water gauge, which is a very high, static pressure we have seen. And you can and you can check it, you know, our competitors, the some of the, some of the RVs and RVs that are out there, you know, they lose 15%, they lose 30%.
00:42:31:09 - 00:42:46:06
Don West: We've got we saw one that was actually almost 60%. So again, this is a testament to the motors and and the core. So again, I just I just wanted to point that out, you know, aside from from all the bells and whistles you set, what you you get what you said.
00:42:46:09 - 00:43:04:03
Matt Power: Yeah. So to high, I guess what you're saying is not all your RVs are created equal. First of all. Like like there is different like that inverter technology versus the ability to, you know, ramp up and variable speed and all that stuff does make a big I think that also makes a difference. Turns out noisy it is. Keeps it super quiet.
00:43:04:03 - 00:43:04:27
Matt Power: Right?
00:43:05:00 - 00:43:24:04
Don West: Yeah. And actually our comforts, it's rated for sound as well. You know, the, the, the the whisper comfort. So again, it's, Yeah, yeah, sound is, sound is a major thing. You know, we don't, you know, you don't want people, oops. I'm sorry. You don't want people upset because it's too loud.
00:43:24:06 - 00:43:43:12
Matt Power: Well, I think also nothing driving this is energy costs are going up. Partly because of the data centers. Are we? We thought we thought we were going to use less energy by now, but now we're actually using more energy every year because of the data centers. But at any rate, that as energy becomes more expensive, it becomes less efficient.
00:43:43:12 - 00:43:58:25
Matt Power: Forms of ventilation are not as attractive. Right? So like you don't just want to leave window open or just leave a bath bang on all the time. Just an output, right? You want to have a way to conserve the energy, at the same time getting the ventilation value.
00:43:58:27 - 00:44:01:08
Don West: Get you paid for it. You don't want to going out the window.
00:44:01:13 - 00:44:02:17
Matt Power: You want to throw it out the window.
00:44:02:21 - 00:44:03:12
Don West: All right.
00:44:03:15 - 00:44:21:06
Matt Power: All right. I think, that's all I had in terms of, you know, questions and stuff for you, but, like, is there anything you wanted to say? Kind of. As we wrap up here, a parting thoughts about maybe what? Why, people should maybe who haven't thought about EVs should be thinking about them. And over the next couple of years.
00:44:21:09 - 00:44:44:25
Don West: Absolutely. And, like I said, it's even though it, it may not be code driven, but I think it's a it's a great addition to, to any home, whether it's, whether it's a tiny home, whether it's a multifamily, single family, large or small. It it's going to improve the indoor air quality. It's going to help with removing any of you got pet dander, all that stuff.
00:44:44:27 - 00:45:07:04
Don West: It's going to help with that. You know, the, and also it's going to help preserve the preserve the home itself by managing that moisture. You know, it's if, when, when, when, when the, humidity's too high or too low, you know, you're not comfortable. You know, the temperature could be whatever it is, but, yeah, if you're not managing that moisture, and it's,
00:45:07:09 - 00:45:07:18
Don West: Well, also.
00:45:07:19 - 00:45:25:28
Matt Power: It's degrading materials. I mean, you know, you get that moisture, you know, behind your drywall or, you know, the moisture gets into everything inside of your house. You can't it's not something just just a comfort issue. It might destroy your house over time. So, you know, I like, like Joe Steeper. I've always says, you know, moisture is the enemy.
00:45:26:00 - 00:45:29:11
Matt Power: It's more it's always moisture in the house where you don't want it.
00:45:29:13 - 00:45:30:08
Don West: Absolutely.
00:45:30:08 - 00:45:56:13
Matt Power: Right. Right. So everybody who is who's still on the call, with us, well, we we will take your questions, but we'll take them by email. Mike can explain why I think I'm gonna send him to Don. And Don will follow up with you rather than hold everybody up here. So if you have specific stuff about anything you heard today or other stuff related to ERV and ventilation, you know, Mike's going to show us up and then, tell you where to send them, so.
00:45:56:13 - 00:45:58:18
Matt Power: Thanks, Don. Nice chatting with you, Matt.
00:45:58:18 - 00:45:59:25
Don West: Thank you. Pleasure.
00:45:59:28 - 00:46:05:02
Matt Power: Great. Appreciate it. Great webinar. And, I hope we'll do it again soon.
00:46:05:04 - 00:46:19:03
Mike Collignon: Yes. As Matt had mentioned, we do have to go. Unfortunately, as a prior commitment. However, I had been furiously, jotting down all the questions that have been sent in. And don be prepared.
00:46:19:05 - 00:46:20:19
Don West: There are many. Okay.
00:46:20:22 - 00:46:39:15
Mike Collignon: But we are going to get every one of those questions over to Don. So you will hear from Don. You will get your question answered. So everyone who's going, wait a minute, wait. Don't worry. We'll get to you. We promise. But we do want to thank our audience for being here. You know, great showing from our audience.
00:46:39:15 - 00:47:03:01
Mike Collignon: Wonderful questions have been coming in, Don. Thank you, Matt, for, leading the discussion today. You know, so thank you very much to Panasonic Healthy Indoor Living Solutions for their generous sponsorship of this, discussion. We very much appreciate their generosity. Our next webinar is going to take place in two weeks on October the 2nd. We'll be back with another housing 2.0 webinar.
00:47:03:03 - 00:47:25:22
Mike Collignon: Sam is going to look at, how to manage homebuyer uncertainty. Maybe they'll be less uncertain with yesterday's announcement of a quarter point interest rate drop, but I'm guessing there's more to their concerns than that. So you'll want to tune in starting at 2 p.m. eastern time to find out again. That's Thursday, October 2nd. Until next time, have a great autumnal equinox and stay safe.
00:47:25:22 - 00:47:28:19
Mike Collignon: Stay healthy and take care everyone. So long.
00:47:28:22 - 00:47:29:17
Don West: Thank you, thank you.