Healthy Indoor Air

There has been an epidemic of respiratory ailments in the USA (a 300% increase over the last 10 years), due in part to poor indoor air quality (IAQ) in homes!

Without a proper ventilation system, the amount of fresh air that enters a home is largely a matter of chance. "Natural ventilation" – the kind you get by opening windows – just doesn't do the best job, because it tends to provide either too much or too little ventilation. Because a Solar Village Home uses construction techniques and materials that make our homes extremely air tight – proper ventilation is even more critical (and required by most building codes). A Solar Village Home avoids ventilation problems by combining tight, well-insulated, leak-free construction with an energy-efficient mechanical Heat Recovery Ventilation (HRV) system.

The HRV system quietly provides a continuous stream of fresh outdoor air to all living areas of the home, 24 hours a day. At the same time, it maintains a balance in the home's air by removing an equivalent amount of stale air from the kitchen and bathrooms, where hu

midity and odors occur. The ventilation system typically has the capacity to change all the air in the house every 20 minutes and may eliminate the need for noisy inefficient bathroom fans.

In addition, the system includes a heat recovery device that uses heat captured from the exhaust air to pre-heat or cool incoming fresh air. This makes continuous ventilation much more cost-effective. Typically, an HRV system recovers 70 to 80 percent of the heat or coolness in the exhaust air, ensuring that homeowners have fresh air and low energy bills. Unlike natural ventilation which can bring in extremely hot (and humid) outside air in the summer or extremely cold air in the winter which you have to pay to remove with your HVAC system.

Solar Village homes take IAQ even farther by using low toxicity paints, finishes, cabinets and healthy insulation in all our homes to minimize the indoor air pollution found in typical homes. A new home smell is unfortunately a sign of a toxic home. As example, cabinets are the biggest source of indoor pollution in most homes which is why our cabinets have been certified by the Environment Stewardship Program to reduce toxicity and smells.

The bottom line is a Solar Village Home is one of the healthiest homes available on the market.

Return to Turn-key Homes main page