Airtight Home Ventilation for the 21st Century with Fantech: Kitchen Exhaust, Make Up Air, Radon etc

There's a lot of mythology and misinformation about how to ventilate homes, and here Corbett shows, with the assistance of Phil Rivas from Fantech, how a perfect ventilation system gets built with 5 classes of HVI-certified equipment.

Phil Rivas - Fantech 0:07

1:26 Overview
Exhaust ventilation.
Purification and filtration.
Air exchange and whole house ventilation.
Pressure balancing

1:47 Radon System (in-line fan, EC)

2:57 Kitchen Exhaust - remote-mount (noise outside) fan with duct sound dampener, hood liner.

5:14 Dryer Booster.
6:18 Auxiliary Lint Trap

7:21 HEPA Filters, taking particles out of the air. Pre-filter, activated carbon filter, two year HEPA filter (traps 99.97% of particles larger than 0.3 micrometers)

10:05 Whole Home Ventilation
10:43 ERV Core
11:52 Ports in/out
13:41 Fittings

15:21 Make-Up Air System
16:02 Controller
17:00 Intake Vent w/ screen
17:12 motor-controlled variable Damper
18:08 Fan (EC, infinitely variable)
18:25 Filter Box
19:17 Homeowner Maintenance
20:11 Duct Dampener/Silencer
20:47 Heater & Controller
23:27 Verification Testing later

On average, women and men need to consume about 11 & 15 cups of water from all sources each day. Probably 8 or less cups is from glasses of treated water. On average, we breathe the equivalent of about 2000 gallon bottles of unfiltered air each day. 0:53

[frankgall]

20 min Corbett video about ventilation!!!?? I can die happy

[mannyjr]

Great video, I a builder and mechanic contractor, I love the idea of tight homes and this equipment is a must, in NJ I have very limited work using any of it, people think I’m nuts when I start talking about it. Thanks for the time to make the video great job, I also used thermal buck and blue skin on my house, and 2” of ComfortBoard 80 on the exterior, love passive homes.

[vansage]

The amount of information hear is overwhelming. Great presentation and you might be on your way of surpassing ol Matt Risinger.

[hoatam]

*Works great with **Fastly.Cool** ! Love all the features offered! Multidirectional, temperature controlled and various speed settings! This is our third of this product!*

[technorex]

I'm really happy I finally found a channel that recognizes ERV as the more effective system for most climates.

[kylemacht]

Corbett, this is probably my favorite video of yours. Well done, some really good information for professionals and homeowners. One question, are you using a regular dryer or have you considered a heat pump dryer? We are typically recommending heat pump dryers in all our projects since they don't have an exhaust. They do take a little longer to dry, but about 50% longer, not 6 hrs like it use to be. Thank you!! FYI, I will have to remember the 2, 000 gallons of air a day, I've never heard it in those units, about 30 lbs of air per day. I think cups are a much better idea that a client could relate to.

[davidfleuchaus]

Phil Rivas - Fantech 0:07

1:26 Overview
Exhaust ventilation.
Purification and filtration.
Air exchange and whole house ventilation.
Pressure balancing

1:47 Radon System (in-line fan, EC)

2:57 Kitchen Exhaust - remote-mount (noise outside) fan with duct sound dampener, hood liner.

5:14 Dryer Booster.
6:18 Auxiliary Lint Trap

7:21 HEPA Filters, taking particles out of the air. Pre-filter, activated carbon filter, two year HEPA filter (traps 99.97% of particles larger than 0.3 micrometers)

10:05 Whole Home Ventilation
10:43 ERV Core
11:52 Ports in/out
13:41 Fittings

15:21 Make-Up Air System
16:02 Controller
17:00 Intake Vent w/ screen
17:12 motor-controlled variable Damper
18:08 Fan (EC, infinitely variable)
18:25 Filter Box
19:17 Homeowner Maintenance
20:11 Duct Dampener/Silencer
20:47 Heater & Controller
23:27 Verification Testing later

On average, women and men need to consume about 11 & 15 cups of water from all sources each day. Probably 8 or less cups is from glasses of treated water. On average, we breathe the equivalent of about 2000 gallon bottles of unfiltered air each day. 0:53

[torempilor]

Can't wait to see the installation!

[jeffgaufin]

Great video really appreciate the longer-form videos going into the less well understood parts of building a high-performance home. Did you have a mechanical engineer draw out the entire system?

[someOneYouKnow]

this is my favorite video of fresh air systems.

[AndrewAliferis]

A great video with tons of very useful information! Thank you for such a detailed presentation on this most important topic, Corbett and Phil.

[lenbloom]

The ERV manufacturers that we have been looking at expressly say that the ERV equipment should not be installed in a bathroom. We didn't understand that because, as you've pointed out, the ERV is built to handle the high moisture. Is the Fantech ERV different somehow to make the installation possible in a bathroom?

Your videos are an amazing resource. Thank you very much.

[tealkerberus]

I appreciate the respect for not making the woman's feet cold. One of the interesting discoveries that has arisen from the broader accessibility of hormone support for transgender people is that women's hormones restrict blood supply to the extremities more than men's hormones do. Women having cold feet is a real thing, and it's part of our survival-oriented physiology because we're better at keeping our core temperature stable, but also cold feet are uncomfortable and designing houses to keep them warm is IMPORTANT.

[pchangover]

What is the filter cost for these systems a year?

Also I love the idea of it all but as an average consumer with limited building experience this seems kind of daunting.

[michaelvangundy]

When you said that it was going to be a high performance exhaust system I was expecting more. Way back in the non computer days we ran all of the exhaust system into the attic. At the bottom was a condensation drain piped to a trap then outdoors. The main feature had a freon heat exchanger to save heat. Preheating the fresh air inlet. This system also was balanced to have 15% fresh air into the return air system. One outlet and one inlet. The inlet had a rolled filter at the inlet. Then pleated filter at the plenum. The kitchen exhaust always ran out as short as possible. We sheetrock ed a box with fire x on the inside. The idea was if it accumulated grease and had a fire, would it spread it or contain it? Last, was a power interrupt to the smoke detectors. One inside the exhaust air and two or three inside the home. They go off and shut down all fans.

On a side note. Did you test for Radon?

[jessicacabanilla]

Can one of you teach at my university you’re much more helpful than my lecturers

[erikthie]

the one thing i would love for all of this technology is for it to check itself if there is a problem and email the home owner when it needs servicing. annual service is one thing, but if it breaks or stops working in the middle of a cycle, you may not know unless you are constantly checking them. for example, the heater for the fresh air intake. if it stops, all of sudden it is cold one day and it may have broken 3 months ago.

[dennmillsch]

Nice video. Very helpful to me. Now you just need to make a video showing the design of the system and also installation methods. That'd be way cool.
Not sure what the point was around 08:00 regarding a humid summer, a clogged filter and "not enough air flow across your coil." I'm assuming "coil" is referring to the cooling coil in an air conditioner trying to dehumidify the indoor air? A second trivial point is at the beginning the mention of drinking 8 cups of water per day while text on the screen says "1 Gallon per day." But 1 gallon = 16 cups !!!

[kuklachica]

You said you'd mention bath ventilation, but I didn't hear anything about that? Can you comment on what is happening with humid bathroom air?

[gloriaalkins]

With regards to humidity, at what point does an HRV system make sense? I read that a climate with over 60% humidity would require an ERV, but HRV is fine with less humidity. Your thoughts?