Heat recovery ventilation is still a technology in its infancy.
Typically only around 90% of the energy is recovered, even in ideal conditions.
That sounds good, but considering that for 'good air', you really want to be replacing the air fully every 10 minutes. That means after ~1.5 hours, you've lost nearly all the heat in your home.
Combine that with the fact the 90% is an ideal figure - in more typical installations it might be more like 50% because the incoming and outgoing airflows are not balanced, the heat exchanger is full of fluff and dust, and the humidity of the air is such that lots of energy is lost to the latent heat of vaporization.
Is it worth having one if you want a well ventilated house? Yes. Will it be worth replacing it in 5-10 years when more efficient models get designed...? Probably also yes.
Typically only around 90% of the energy is recovered, even in ideal conditions.
That sounds good, but considering that for 'good air', you really want to be replacing the air fully every 10 minutes. That means after ~1.5 hours, you've lost nearly all the heat in your home.
Combine that with the fact the 90% is an ideal figure - in more typical installations it might be more like 50% because the incoming and outgoing airflows are not balanced, the heat exchanger is full of fluff and dust, and the humidity of the air is such that lots of energy is lost to the latent heat of vaporization.
Is it worth having one if you want a well ventilated house? Yes. Will it be worth replacing it in 5-10 years when more efficient models get designed...? Probably also yes.