Attic Heat Recovery
Heat-Mover™ Overview & FAQ's
Heat-Mover™ is an inexpensive add on system that can save up to 30% in home heating costs. Attic spaces get quite warm from the sun all year long, including winter months. Heat-Mover™ senses and moves this usable FREE HEAT from ATTIC SPACES, into homes or buildings as free supplemental heat. Option for inline filter and another model that preheats incoming domestic water are available. Water heating can be done year round.
Question: My attic is pretty chilly during the winter, certainly cooler than my house. I'm not sure I want the air from my attic displacing the air I've heated in my house.
Answer: Heat-Mover is smarter than this! It will not put cold attic air into your building unless you program the controller that way. It has two temperature sensors, one in the attic and one in the building to be heated. I have attic temperatures from Montana during the winter months and there is significant useable heat on many days through the winter. This system is especially useful of course through the daytime hours when many people are at work leaving homes empty, and temperatures are turned down to conserve energy. Most people use setback thermostats on their central heating furnaces. HeatMover will provide much of the heat needed during this period of time, saving the home owner on energy costs. Heat-Mover is also the best for cottage owners, where the cottage is left vacant sometimes for months but requires low temperature heat (above freezing), Heat-Mover can provide incredible savings and Pay Back can be had in less than 6 months. Thanks for the Post, I hope I answered your questions.
Question: As always, the devil is in the details. Do you have a simple, easy way to get that heat from the attic to where it is needed? Nobody wants a complicated system, and the cost must match the savings.
Answer: Its just regular off the shelf ducting, or can be PVC, conduit, whatever works best for the customer and installer, quite simple. Many installations look just like bathroom exhaust fans, but of course ours blows in warm air. Our least expensive system retails for $CAD199.00.Several of our Heat-Mover systems are being installed in Motel rooms during the low season as owners have realized significant energy savings. Thanks for your post.
Comment: That sounds very reasonable to me. It is ironic that this idea has been developed in Canada, when in the Southern States the attic heat in the summer, is actually warmer than the water heater temperature setting. Are you located in the Kitchener/Waterloo area? I spent a year at the Conestoga college there in the good old days.
Question: In my experience (Winnipeg, Manitoba), we insulate our ceilings and
ventilate our attics, and snow does not melt on the roof, most days.
Answer: Hi Bob, thanks for your post. In certain parts of the country yes snow
will stay on the roofs during the winter months, so be it, you still have early
springtime and fall, and with a Heat-Mover installed you can save significant energy.
Energy in the form of warm flowing air or preheating incoming water supply.
HeatMover moves this free warm air, automatically to wherever the customer needs it. It is easy to check attic temperature by using an indoor/outdoor thermometer system. Just place the outdoor sensor in the attic (high spot).
Question: good building practice is to keep the attic as close to the outside temp as possible you would need to vent the soffit line, containing the heat in the attic would cause more harm than good especially in Canada.
Answer: Heat-Mover takes available heat (as programmed by the customer from 0.5 °C/°F differential and up) from an existing vented attic and moves this free heat to where the customer needs it. This will not harm anything in existing attics and even new building practice, attics are still being built the same old way. Vented attics warm up in spite of the vents. Thanks for your response.
Question: this would be a good idea for under utilized buildings, is there a filter built in to keep out fibre glass shards and dust?
Answer: Yes Heat-Mover has an optional inline filter for airborne particles for that purpose. All installations to date have not required a filter. Activated carbon filters are also available.
Comment: Every application is different, that's why HeatMover offers the filter as an option to keep the product costs low. In order to offer a product at a reasonable price and most Customers do not require the filter, so why charge for a filter to every customer. HeatMover is priced for most all people to afford, plus payback is very quick through a reduction of fossil fuel use.
Comment: HeatMover reduces the use of central furnace heating systems, thereby reducing fossil fuel use, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions. As Heat-Mover senses useable warm/hot attic air (especially in late fall and early spring and many days through the winter months), it moves this free heat from the attic and into buildings to reduce the use of central heating systems, thereby reducing greenhouse gas emissions and providing payback to the consumer in energy savings. Everybody wins with a cost effective and affordable Heat-Mover system installed. A conservative estimate in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions using a Heat-Mover system is up to 30% over an annualized basis. A Heat-Mover system can easily be implemented, installed and put to great use in many building applications such as: residences, vacation homes, vacant homes, vacant buildings, storage/warehouse buildings, motels, resorts, churches, legions, halls, auditoriums, schools, government buildings, workshops, industrial buildings, commercial buildings and more. It is ideally suited for vacant cottages, residences, buildings, warehouses and halls, etc.
Question: Every attic I have been in (not a lot, mind you) smells really bad mixture of mold and dirty animal smells... Certainly wouldn't want that in my home!
Answer: Most if not all attics we have seen thus far are pretty clean and some of our installations have taken place is older buildings. If people have animals or mould in their attics, they have a serious problem which should be looked into right away and they probably wouldn't care too much about installing such a system. Our product has an optional filter, though no installations have required this feature to date. Activated Carbon filters are also available, but these require more powerful blowers. We have had no complaints about bad attic smells and I wouldn't recommend installing a Heat-Mover system in an attic that was not or is not maintained. Should be no roof leaks into the attic cavity, roof shingles replaced on regular basis before they cause leakage and any holes allowing rodents in must be taken care of. A well maintained attic space is a prerequisite for this product.
Question: Interesting, but the sceptic in me would want to see more test data. I fully appreciate that attics build and retain heat in the summer months. However, the high efficiency home minimizes this heat build with superior building envelope and insulation properties. In winter months, especially when the roof is snow covered, there is very little or no thermal transfer from the sun on roof into the attic cavity. I can see applicability for older, poorly insulated homes, but otherwise if the building is constructed properly in the first place this "heat booster" system will provide little payback.
Answer: If the home is properly insulated using newer building techniques (and not too many are using these techniques due to costs), I can agree with you to some degree. Attics in 98% of the buildings we see here at Heat-Booster are not adequately vented or insulated and are ideal for capturing the suns solar energy and moved to where its needed using our Heat-Mover system. If you live in an area where you get some snow on the roof for a few weeks in the winter months you will not get any solar heat in the attic. But during the early spring and late fall you will benefit greatly with a Heat-Mover system.
Integral solar heat capture roofs can be installed for efficient heat recovery year round. These roofs can be almost as efficient as evacuated solar tubes, but at a fraction of the cost. The smooth clear cover greatly reduces snow buildup. Great for space and water heating, including swimming pools.
Stand-alone solar heat collectors can also be used. Heat-Mover design has high solar energy capture efficiency (even in cold weather) and low cost.
Heat recovery ventilator heat losses can be reduced by ducting intake to attic. Even better, run the ventilator on a programmable timer that is set to be on during daylight hours.