ᐅ Controlled residential ventilation Dry air – are humidifiers the right solution?

Hello,

I have ordered the enthalpy exchanger for our 450 Zehnder unit.

Thanks and best regards,

Barossi

Hello,

the enthalpy heat exchanger for the 450 Zehnder unit has arrived.

The system was set to maintenance mode, the heat exchanger was replaced, and the unit was restarted.

Do I need to change anything in the settings now? Or is it already running properly?

Best regards,
Barossi

Thumbs up from me as well. After 4 weeks in our new house with the Q450, we also replaced the standard heat exchanger with the enthalpy exchanger. Now it’s about 50%, which is just perfect. Previously it was 35%. We are also using the KNX module. So far, everything works great! The device is quiet, and we are already using various controls. For example, the controlled residential ventilation automatically switches off during showering to avoid “cold drafts.” You can really notice that quickly with wet skin.

Barossi schrieb:
Hello,

the enthalpy heat exchanger for the 450 Zehnder unit has arrived.

System set to maintenance mode, heat exchanger replaced and restarted.

Do I need to change anything in the menu now? Or is it already working?

Best regards, Barossi

Switch from HRV to ERV in the professional technician menu.

How can I change this in the professional trades menu?

Hello friends of controlled residential ventilation,

I hope I’m not reopening an old thread, but the thread title doesn’t fully reflect its content yet. Because besides an enthalpy exchanger, an active air humidification system also belongs to the "humidifier" category. And this is where my question comes in:

My heating engineer recommends a controlled residential ventilation system from PLUGGIT. As is well known, this company does not offer enthalpy exchangers and gives reasons such as:

• Only part of the moisture can be recovered, so the drying of indoor air in winter is only delayed.
• This has already been discussed here. Of course, if you regularly shower or have other moisture-producing habits, there should be enough humidity. But it’s debatable how generally valid this is for everyone.
• Moisture transfer in an enthalpy exchanger occurs via osmosis. Therefore, a water film is always present on the membrane on the supply air side, which has to be taken up by the supply air.
• Bacteria cannot pass from the exhaust air to the supply air because the membrane pores are too small for microorganisms. However, in the warm environment on the moist supply air side, bacteria can form in the existing water film. Manufacturers argue that the pores are small enough and additionally coat the membrane with an antibacterial layer. In my opinion, they only do the latter because bacteria would form on the supply air side if the coating did not exist. Otherwise, it would not be necessary since bacteria physically cannot pass through the membrane from the exhaust air side. To me, this is an indirect proof that this might be a problem (!). Otherwise, the coating would not be applied.
• Does anyone also know how long such an antibacterial coating remains effective? Every coating loses effectiveness sooner or later.
• Active humidity control. You can individually adjust your humidity level, which is controlled by a feedback loop with a humidity sensor in the exhaust air.

So now the question is: Based on these reasons, is it worth investing in an actively controlled steam humidifier like the one Pluggit offers? The price is comparably high—about 2500 € (around $2,700) compared to 500–1000 € (about $540–1,080) for a passive enthalpy exchanger. Additionally, there is the electrical power consumption, for which I don’t yet have a sense (of course, this depends on the chosen humidity level).

Thanks very much for your opinions and experiences