New Employee to Design Arctic Grade HRV System

ACEP and the Cold Climate Housing Research Center are excited to welcome Riley Bickford to their staff.

This spring, with the assistance of ACEP and CCHRC, Bickford will design a dual hood for heat recovery ventilation systems that is capable of functioning in arctic climates. He’ll be under the direction of CCHRC research director and ACEP affiliate Tom Marsik.

Heat recovery ventilation, which cycles air through a heat exchanger, is quite useful in colder climates. It transfers heat from the warm air exhausted from a building to the cold fresh air drawn in. Fresh air cycling through the building benefits the inhabitant’s health, and lower power consumption benefits the inhabitant’s wallet.

The easiest method to install an HRV system is to use a dual hood, where inlet and outlet pipes run in parallel and share a single port in the building’s wall. The alternative is to use two separate hoods and thus two separate ports. Using separate inlet and outlet hoods is effective in extremely cold conditions, whereas current dual hoods tend to freeze up. The goal of this project is to create a dual hood design capable of functioning in arctic conditions.

 

Riley Bickford has a joint appointment with ACEP and CCHRC. Photo by Amanda Byrd.