A small white button in a corridor: the only part of the system the customer will ever touch
On the wall of a corridor in Très-Saint-Sacrement, between the bathroom and the bedrooms, there is a white push button marked 20, 40, 60. Just below it, an electronic Stelpro thermostat that controls the room's baseboard heaters. Two neighboring controls, two opposite functions: one manages temperature, the other manages air. Most homeowners know exactly how to use the first. Almost no one knows what to do with the second.
Yet this is the button that determines whether the air exchanger installed in the basement works for the house or sits idle. The project described here concerns the complete installation of a vänEE Novo+ 100H in a home in the parish of Très-Saint-Sacrement, between Ormstown and Howick, heated entirely with electric baseboard heaters. No furnace, no forced-air ducts, not an inch of sheet metal in the house before we arrived.
The special case of homes heated with baseboard heaters
A significant portion of Quebec's housing stock has no air-distribution network. Heating by convectors or baseboard heaters, room-by-room electronic thermostats, and that's it. This heating method has real advantages: low installation cost, perfect zoning, and no moving parts. It also has a direct consequence for air quality: nothing circulates the air in the house. Each room exists in isolation behind its door.
In a 1960s home with whistling windows, this lack of air circulation goes unnoticed. In a renovated, reinsulated home with replaced windows and sealed rim joists, it becomes noticeable within a few weeks:
- The air in the primary bedroom becomes heavy in the early morning.
- It takes an hour for the bathroom to dry after a shower.
- The windows on the north side fog up as soon as the first cold snap hits.
- Cooking odors linger on the main floor until the next day.
This is exactly the list the homeowners gave us over the phone. And since no duct network existed, the solution could not be a quick connection to an existing system. The entire network had to be built.
The vänEE Novo+ 100H: why this appliance for this home
The Novo+ 100H is available only in Quebec and was designed to meet the requirements of the Novoclimat program. This is not a marketing distinction; it explains its features.
Data from the installed appliance, model 1601717 :
- Airflow of 66 to 150 cfm, measured at 0.4 in. of water (100 Pa). The range corresponds exactly to the needs of a medium- to large-sized single-family home.
- 79% apparent sensible efficiency at 0°C at low speed.
- 67 W power consumption at low speed, the setting in which the appliance operates for most of the year.
- 6-inch side outlets (15 cm), four in total.
- Recirculation mode, which maintains continuous airflow throughout the house without constantly introducing outdoor air. In a home without forced-air heating, this function replaces the air circulation that a furnace fan would provide elsewhere.
- ENERGY STAR certified according to Natural Resources Canada criteria.
- Dimensions of 16 1/2 in. high, 35 in. wide, and 17 1/8 in. deep, weighing 65 lb.
- Integrated pressure taps and factory-installed balancing dampers, plus a push-fit drain system.
This last point deserves a closer look because it distinguishes an appliance designed to be installed properly from one designed to be sold. The pressure taps allow a manometer to be connected directly to the appliance and the actual airflow rates to be read without drilling anything. The integrated dampers make it possible to correct the imbalance between supply and exhaust without adding dampers to the ducts. In other words, the appliance is built so a technician can prove what it delivers.
Building a ventilation system from scratch: a two-day installation
Day 1 — Layout and drilling
We always start by marking out the basement layout with chalk on the joists. The selected system:
- Exhaust: one return in the primary bathroom, one in the powder room, one in the laundry room, and one in the basement.
- Fresh-air supply: three bedrooms, the living room, and the dining room.
- 6-inch main trunk, with 5-inch branches to each grille.
The wall grilles are Whisper registers, adjustable individually, allowing the airflow to be adjusted room by room during commissioning rather than accepting the distribution imposed by the random differences in duct lengths.
The exterior penetrations took the longest part of the day. Two hoods: a 6 in. × 12 in. plastic hood for stale-air exhaust, and a 6 in. anti-gust air intake for the supply. The anti-gust model is not a luxury out in the country: winter winds sweep across the fields unobstructed and drive powdery snow directly into an ordinary hood, which ends up blocked during the first storm.
The two hoods were installed on different walls, well separated from each other and away from the dryer vent and all plumbing vents.
Day 2 — Unit, drain, heater, controls
The unit was suspended beneath the joists, level, with front clearance for removing the core. The drain was installed with the specified 1/2 in. tube and “T” adapter, with the trap filled and a continuous slope toward the floor drain.
Then comes the element that many electric-baseboard installations omit: the electric duct heater. In a home without forced air, fresh air leaves the core at around 15 °C on a -20 °C day. This air is perfectly healthy, but it arrives directly in the bedroom through a wall grille without passing through an intermediate heat exchanger. The result, if nothing is done, is predictable: the client feels a cool draft, decides that the unit is poorly designed, and turns it off.
We therefore installed a 6 in. duct heater on the supply branch, with an adjustable built-in thermostat. It does not heat the house: it tempers the fresh air by about ten degrees as it enters the living areas. The difference in perceived comfort is decisive, and this detail is often what makes an air exchanger stay on all year instead of being shut off in January.
Commissioning and balancing
Balancing was done with the Magnehelic pressure gauge connected to the unit's pressure taps, using a 6 in. airflow meter at each grille. We adjust the built-in dampers until the supply and exhaust are equal, then set the target continuous airflow. The measured values are recorded and provided to the owner.
An HRV delivered without this step is a unit whose actual performance is known by neither the installer nor the customer. This is the main reason why two installations of the same unit, in two neighboring houses, can produce vastly different results.
The wall switch: the instruction manual no one receives
Let's return to the hallway. The control installed there is a 20/40/60-minute illuminated push button, an auxiliary low-voltage control wired to the unit with telephone-type wire. It supplements the main control, which manages the operating status and humidity level.
What 20, 40, and 60 really mean
The three indicator lights are not speeds. They are high-speed operating durations, in minutes:
- 20 minutes: a short shower, drying out a bathroom, clearing a cooking odor.
- 40 minutes: two consecutive showers, a simmered meal, an evening with several guests.
- 60 minutes: laundry and drying, deep cleaning, painting, entertaining.
Each additional press advances the indicator light. One more press after 60 cancels the setting and returns the unit to normal operation. When the time expires, the unit automatically returns to its continuous speed, without anyone having to think about it. This is the only function occupants need to operate daily.
The main control and seasonal adjustment
The main control, on the other hand, is adjusted a few times a year. On a control equipped with a humidistat, the setpoint must follow the outdoor temperature, because the humidity level a house can tolerate without condensation on its windows and walls decreases when the weather is cold. The guidelines we leave our clients:
| Outdoor temperature | Indoor humidity setting |
|---|---|
| -30°C | about 15% |
| -20°C | about 20% |
| -10°C | about 25% |
| 0°C | about 35% |
| +10°C | about 40% |
Leaving the setting at 40% in January is like asking the unit never to start at high speed, while water vapor accumulates on the windows.
The operating mistakes we correct every winter
- Set the unit to OFF to save energy. A HRV running at low speed uses about 67 W, equivalent to an old light bulb. What you save by turning it off, you pay back in humidity, condensation, and odors.
- Confuse the 20/40/60 button with an on/off switch. The unit is already running. The button only requests a temporary boost.
- Leave the humidity setting at its maximum all year round.
- Install the main control in a bathroom. A dehumidistat placed there detects shower steam rather than the humidity level in the house. It should be on an interior wall, in a living area, away from a heat source.
- Do not run the low-voltage control wire through the same box or passage as the 240 V conductors for the baseboard heaters. The control must have its own routing.
- Never use recirculation mode in a house without forced-air heating, even though this is precisely the function that replaces the missing air circulation.
Maintenance, in three steps
- Every 3 months: remove and wash the interior filters in warm, soapy water, and dry them completely before putting them back in place.
- Every 6 months: remove the core, vacuum it gently, rinse it if necessary, and check the drain pan and trap.
- Once a year: inspect both exterior hoods, clear snow and insects from the grilles, check that the flexible ducts are still taut, and recheck the airflow rates.
A row house surrounded by fields clogs its filters faster than a suburban house. In Très-Saint-Sacrement, Godmanchester, and Saint-Chrysostome, we recommend checking the interior filters after harvest periods, even outside the regular schedule.
Financial assistance available in Quebec
The Rénoclimat program provides $500 for the installation or replacement of an HRV or ERV, provided that the unit is listed in section 3 of the Home Ventilating Institute (HVI) certified products directory. Two conditions govern the application: an energy assessment before and after the work, and an improvement in the ÉnerGuide rating between the two visits. A standalone air exchanger rarely achieves this; combined with basement insulation, air sealing, or the replacement of a heating system, it becomes a cost-effective part of the application. For new construction, the Novoclimat program imposes specific ventilation requirements, which the Novo+ 100H was designed to meet.
Our air exchanger installations, from the Haut-Saint-Laurent to Greater Montréal
Baseboard-heated homes without a duct network make up a significant portion of our workload. In Huntingdon and Sainte-Barbe, these are renovated row houses where the entire network still has to be built. In Châteauguay and Saint-Constant, they are bungalows whose basements have just been finished and whose humidity has doubled. On the North Shore, in Repentigny and Saint-Eustache, we often take over existing installations whose airflow rates have never been measured. In Longueuil and Boucherville, condominiums and semi-detached homes impose constrained duct routes. In Montréal, in Rosemont and Verdun, baseboard-heated plexes face exactly the same challenge as Très-Saint-Sacrement, on the scale of a single dwelling. In Laval, renovated 1970s homes almost always eventually require balanced mechanical ventilation.
Why entrust your air exchanger installation to AirGreen
We are an HVAC company based in Montréal, holding RBQ 5645-9605-01, with more than fifteen teams on the road. We calculate airflow rates before recommending a unit, balance the system with a manometer during commissioning, provide the measured values in writing, and take the time to explain the controls to the occupants before leaving the premises. This last step does not appear on any invoice, yet it is what determines whether the unit will be used correctly for twenty years.
For an air exchanger installation, the construction of a ventilation network in a baseboard-heated home, an HRV replacement, balancing, or complete HVAC maintenance in Montréal, Laval, Longueuil, on the North Shore, the South Shore, or in the Haut-Saint-Laurent, email us at sales@airgreen.ca or call (514) 316-2973. We assess your home on site and provide you with a detailed quote.