TL;DR
A heat recovery ventilator is a whole-house mechanical ventilation appliance that exhausts stale indoor air and pulls in fresh outdoor air through a crossing-stream core, transferring 60 to 90 percent of the outgoing heat to the incoming flow. It supplies the continuous fresh air that tight, modern construction needs to meet ASHRAE 62.2 without the energy penalty of open windows.
What it means
A heat recovery ventilator is a whole-house mechanical ventilation appliance that exhausts stale indoor air and pulls in fresh outdoor air through a crossing-stream core, transferring 60 to 90 percent of the outgoing heat to the incoming flow. It supplies the continuous fresh air that tight, modern construction needs to meet ASHRAE 62.2 without the energy penalty of open windows. Its cousin the ERV also exchanges moisture, the usual pick for humid climates, while HRVs suit cold, dry winters.
Where it sits in the glossary
Heat 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
License: CC-BY-4.0 — quote freely with attribution to ProFix Editorial Team / ProFix Directory.