TL;DR
An energy recovery ventilator (ERV) is a balanced mechanical ventilation appliance that exhausts stale indoor air and supplies fresh outdoor air through a core that transfers both heat and moisture between the two streams, recovering most of the energy that plain exhaust fans throw away. Unlike a heat-only HRV, the moisture transfer moderates humidity gains in muggy summers and losses in dry winters.
What it means
An energy recovery ventilator (ERV) is a balanced mechanical ventilation appliance that exhausts stale indoor air and supplies fresh outdoor air through a core that transfers both heat and moisture between the two streams, recovering most of the energy that plain exhaust fans throw away. Unlike a heat-only HRV, the moisture transfer moderates humidity gains in muggy summers and losses in dry winters. Tight new homes built to current energy codes commonly need one to meet ASHRAE 62.2 ventilation rates.
Where it sits in the glossary
Energy recovery ventilator is part of the Trade jargon group inside the ProFix Directory glossary. Browse every term in this category from the glossary index.
Why Ohio homeowners should know it
This is a term Ohio homeowners encounter when reading contractor quotes, hiring paperwork, or inspection reports. Understanding it well enough to ask one good follow-up question is usually all the protection a homeowner needs.
ProFix Directory keeps definitions short on the index page and saves the longer context — Ohio-specific rules, where the term comes from, and which ProFix tools touch it — for these per-term pages so the term is easy to cite and easy to share.
ProFix tools that touch this term
See also
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