Air Exchange units

[lovetoreef]

I realize this is an aquarium related only problem ... LOL

as we are seeing the cooler temperatures rolling in during the nights here in Texas, I hate that my aquarium room has no windows and my AC is having to run at night when it is in the 50's vs. pulling cool air in ... I would love a system that would allow me to pull cool air from the outside and exhaust the warm humid air from the aquarium room out ... I have seen the Broan air exchange units, but, those mix the air ... any systems that allow you to balance air flow and do it strictly with ducts?

 

[tzylak]

Wouldn't it suffice to open any window or door in the house and let the DT room equalize??
I guess plan B would be to have a bathroom-like fan installed in that room to blow out the moist air and let the 'fresh' air come in from the other rooms.
In my case I installed a slow fan to blow air 24/7 from my fudge room (small space under my stairs, think: Harry Potter's bedroom) into the kitchen panty. It works well enough to circulate the air where even the pantry does not smell fishy.

 

[lovetoreef]

I agree ... here is the challenge ... my aquarium room is by itself ... sealed room by itself that shares an AC unit with an adjacent laundry room ... the room doesn't have any windows (no wall space to add a window) and I could open a door, but, I don't want to have to open a door on a regular basis ...

 

[dartier]

I am in the same boat. Have a 560G tank going into a 200 SQ/Ft room and I want to get a unit in place before the install happens. I am leaning towards a whole house HRV along with a Panasonic spot ERV strictly for the aquarium room. I definitely want to vent the humidity directly outside.

I have the added complication that winters are cold here, so HRV units (and ERVs) fallback to recirculation in temperatures far below freezing. The Panasonic unit does this, it reverts back to an exhaust mode only once temperatures get below -7 C. I can live with that.

Dennis

 

[tzylak]

... sealed room by itself that shares an AC unit with an adjacent laundry room ...
If it is a laundry room then it might have a clothes dryer. . . The clothes dryer has an exhaust vent that leads to the outside. . . That could be tapped into as a path to also vent the DT room exhaust.
Just exploring ideas. . .

 

[tkeracer619]

Page 3 on my new build thread shows installation of one.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2578543&page=3

I went with a Honeywell VNT5150H1000. Returnes fresh air into the HVAC and pull stale air from the aquarium room and the other two basement rooms. Though you could plumb it direct if you wanted. I chose to return to the whole house and cut the bottom of the door to let the room equalize. It seems like it's working well though there is nothing wet in the filtration room yet, the house sure smell nice and the basement has already lost the basement smell. That particular model is 150cfm which is enough for roughly a 3000sqft house.

The Honeywell is an excellent product. No games when it comes to balancing the unit because it uses two variable speed duct fans vs on motor with two scroll fans.

No mixing air.

 

[lovetoreef]

Thanks for the replies - tkeracer619 - that is the exact unit I was looking at ... a few questions ... it looks like it mixes the air or do they just cross and share temperature? for me, I really just want cold air in and hot air out ... I don't want the heat exchange? how much was the unit and where did you buy it from?

 

[tkeracer619]

If you don't want the heat exchange then you would just use fans. It would be easy to hook up two 6in ducting fans to a humidistat and turn them on when you need them.


I paid a little over $800 for it, it was local.

Here it can get well below freezing so pulling 15 deg air into a humid room will cause a lot of condensation and frost. Need the heat exchange to bring the temp up before exposing it to a non insulated duct or vent.

The Honeywell uses a plastic heat exchange core that isn't quite as efficient as an aluminum one but it should last longer in our environment. It doesn't mix air or allow moisture to cross the exchanger.

Nice thing about the heat exchange is that your ac won't have to fight hot summer temps as it will cool the incoming air with the outgoing air. HRV is just heat recovery. ERV also allows humidity to cross over into the incoming air. Some models are misleading as to what they have.

 

[lovetoreef]

oops - I see what you are saying, just run 2 duct fans and skip the air exchange unit ... that makes sense

 

[tkeracer619]

Nah, no option for that. It would mix the air.

You could install it in your attic but I put mine in the furnace room and ran exhausted air ducts to the fish room and rest of the basement. I only wanted to pull from the basement, it smelled like a basement, and was pretty humid. I wanted to take advantage of colorados below 50% humidity year round to manage the fish room.

You can get variable speed duct fans. That would be a cheaper approach if you only want to exchange air with no heat recovery.
https://www.amazon.com/VenTech-VT-IF-6-B-Variable-Controller/dp/B005KMPN0K

 

[lovetoreef]

Thank you for the feedback ... ultimately after weighing all options, I opted for a pair of duct fans ... I went with a nicer unit built by Panasonic ... moves a lot of air (240 cfm) ... ran two 6" ducts ... one pulls air from the room through a duct register and is exhausted out a drier vent out my soffit ... the other pulls air from the eave and goes in the fish room ... I have both fans on separate variable speed controls, but, at this point, they are both set to run at max speed ... they both come on for an hour at night from 3-4 am to bring some fresh air in ... as the temperatures start to drop around here, I plan on running it through the day some to help cool the rooms.

The fans are great units and silent - I don't even know they are on and move a lot of air ... in all, I have around $500 in the system installing it myself ...

 

[tkeracer619]

Cool. I think you took the right route.