Energy Performance Testing on Recovery Ventilators and Development of HRV/ERV Testing Facility as Per C439 Standard

Heat recovery ventilators (HRVs), which is the focus of this research, transfer heat between two air streams, flowing in opposite directions, with one stream originating from the outdoors and other from a conditioned building space. The heating and cooling requirements in a conditioned space, (i.e., thermal zone) decrease as the outside air entering the HRV exchanges thermal energy with the exhaust air coming out of the thermal zone by bringing the outside air's temperature close to conditions necessary for human comfort. Even though HRV’s are an important technology for reducing energy, there is a shortage of testing procedures and standards to ensure that units are designed and built for optimum performance. Therefore, a central part of the research effort reported herein is the design and construction of an HRV testing facility at Texas A&M in the RELLIS Energy Efficiency Laboratory (REEL), College Station, Texas. The testing facility is a modification of the current standard used for the Home Ventilating Institute (HVI) certification of ventilators based on the CAN/CSA C439, Standard Laboratory Methods of Testing for Rating the Performance of Heat/Energy – Recovery ventilators. It should be noted that the design of the testing facility incorporates some aspects of the existing test methods. The reason for the modification is that one of the project’s objective was to develop a more straightforward and faster test procedure applicable to hotter climates than what appears to be the general focus of the current cold-weather certification standard used by HVI. The Energy performance of a typical residential HRV, namely a Fantech SHR200, was measured, analyzed, and evaluated by installing and operating it in this new testing facility. After performing extensive testing and creating a large database, the resulting Sensible Heat Recovery Efficiency (SHRE) and Effectiveness were found to be 32% and 58%, respectively, at the HRV’s rated speed of 195 CFM. Upon further evaluation, it was found that the effectiveness and SHRE increases when the volumetric flow rate rises. The slope of rise is highest from 85 CFM to 155 CFM while the performance parameters show a modest rise from 155 CFM to 235 CFM. In addition to the energy performance study, error analysis, and airflow and thermal performance of the HRV were analyzed