The Passive House (Passivhaus) standard — from the Passive House Institute (PHI) in Darmstadt — is the most demanding envelope-and-services benchmark in buildings, and continuous ventilation with heat recovery is mandatory. This article covers the recovery requirements and how they compare with code minimums. Core Recovery Requirement Metric PHI limit Sensible heat recovery efficiency (HRV/ERV) […]
How Heat Pipe Heat Exchangers Work: Passive, No-Moving-Parts Recovery
A heat-pipe heat exchanger is the quiet workhorse of air-to-air recovery: it moves heat from one airstream to another with no fan, no pump and no moving parts inside the core, relying entirely on the physics of a two-phase refrigerant loop. That makes it uniquely suited to dirty, greasy or contamination-sensitive exhaust where you want […]
Heat Pipe Heat Exchanger Selection: When Passive Recovery Wins
What a heat pipe is A heat pipe is a sealed tube with a working fluid that transfers heat by evaporation and condensation – no moving parts, no power, no cross-flow. In HVAC, banks of heat pipes sit in the airstream to pre-cool (or pre-heat) incoming air using the exhaust stream. It is the most […]