Vaventis sent out an email with some new info so I'll just copy it here

"
Award winning ventilation with heat recovery
If it’s worth doing, it's worth doing well. That is a belief we like to hang on to. Great when it is acknowledged by an international jury of Passive House experts. Next to being the world’s only Passive House certified decentral ventilation with heat recovery, we are the worlds only award winning decentral ventilation with heat recovery. Click here for the jury report (page 32 and 79); "

report

http://europhit.eu/sites/europhit.eu/files/2016_Component-Award_Broschuere.pdf

and a new video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2huXtYV-mg

It's interesting to note that some of the earlier points made about this unit in relation to whole house ventilation have been addressed, though not sure folk have picked up on them. These aren't simply boxes you screw up anywhere in the house and it magically fixes IAQ everywhere. BC are right to insist that ventilation rates are met, and they aren't by just installing one of these things.

The installation in that report isn't simply a single mvhr unit. It's two of them, at opposite ends of a small 2 bedroom flat. In addition, one unit is mounted so you have to drill two holes, one externally and one internally to supply fresh air via the bedroom, there is no real choice where the unit goes. The second unit again requires external and internal holes - it needs ducting as it is mounted in the living room and ducted to the bathroom, and there is in addition to that an "active air transfer valve" mounted between the living room and the bedroom. I assume that needs both a hole and power, perhaps it is a fan, perhaps it is a just a motorised flap valve. Either way it's additional stuff to buy and maintain, and for that bedroom that has the active valve I wouldn't like to bet that there was a great airflow in there at all.

Compared to the simplicity of running a 75mm radial duct system and being sure of air flow where and when you need it there is no comparison for me for a new build. That setup that was entered for testing and won is a million miles from what was being peddled here with claims that a 10mm undercut on all the doors was all that was required to achieve suitable air flow rates. These units may be great, but you are realistically looking at them as a one per wetroom/bedroom combo in a retro fit system and that is going to get expensive.

Posted By: djhWhat I would like to see is a fi-wi heat exchanger used to improve the efficiency of a conventional system.

And the FreshR control systems as well.

Posted By: djhI noticed that the brochure was clearly labelled for 'retrofit' as well. They don't seem to be targeting new build at all, most likely for the reasons you state. It's a useful option to consider against all the other possibilities. What I would like to see is a fi-wi heat exchanger used to improve the efficiency of a conventional system.

We use FreshR's mostly in new builds, this PassivHaus competition was for retrofits.
If you put the FiWi heat exchanger into a conventional MVHR ducted system then you lose the benefits of FreshR over ducted MVHR like:

Ducted MVHR is always on using 40% of the electricity costs in a Passive House, leading to a 50 year return on investment. 2 FreshR units use £5 worth of electricity per annum.

The heat-loss from a Passive House is equal to the heat-loss from ventilation, FreshR only ventilates occupied areas and slows to 10% when nobody's home, the downstairs unit snoozes when everyone is upstairs and vica-versa. The average occupancy levels in 10 Low Energy Houses tested in Holland last Winter with FreshR's fitted was 35%. The FreshR HRVs reduced the average ventilation rate from 0.3ACH to 0.12ACH while maintaining air quality, this reduced the heating demand by 50%, so FreshR HRV has the capacity to reduce the heating demand of a Passive House from 15kWh/m2.annum to 7kWh/m2.annum. We've agreed a 15% lower ventilation rate with the PassivHaus Institute but Peter Warm has conservatively calculated it at a 25% lower ventilation rate but its still being negotiated.

After balancing a ducted MVHR in a Passive House in 2008, (150m3 in, 150m3 out) I noticed that if an internal door is left open the balance went off by 10%, (ie it switched to 135m3 in, 165m3 out), with 0 degree external, 20 degree internal air temperature the return air temperature would drop from 17 degrees to 14 degrees when an internal door is opened. In the winter of 2007/2008 I visited 8 clients we'd built Passive Houses for and 3 had the Ducted MVHR switched off, soon after I met Jon Kristinsson who showed me the solution which was a self balancing unit fitted into the external wall or window.

I've an interest in this product so my opinions are biased!

Posted By: Viking House

Posted By: djhI noticed that the brochure was clearly labelled for 'retrofit' as well. They don't seem to be targeting new build at all, most likely for the reasons you state. It's a useful option to consider against all the other possibilities. What I would like to see is a fi-wi heat exchanger used to improve the efficiency of a conventional system.

We use FreshR's mostly in new builds, this PassivHaus competition was for retrofits.
If you put the FiWi heat exchanger into a conventional MVHR ducted system then you lose the benefits of FreshR over ducted MVHR like:

Ducted MVHR is always on using 40% of the electricity costs in a Passive House, leading to a 50 year return on investment. 2 FreshR units use £5 worth of electricity per annum.

I just measured my MVHR. It's using 26 W, which I calculate to be 0.625 kWh/day or 228 kWh per year. My electricity consumption at the moment appears to be about 5 kWh/day, which is net of the PV's contribution i.e. lower than actual. I make that 12.5%. If we were also to include my winter consumption at the PH-allowed heating allowance of 15 kWh/m²/year or a bit over 2000 kWh/year that would bring it down to under 6% of consumption.

So I'd be very interested to learn where your alleged 40% figure comes from?

The heat-loss from a Passive House is equal to the heat-loss from ventilation

That simply isn't true, of course. The heat loss is the loss through the fabric (U-values etc), plus the infiltration loss, plus the ventilation loss. I can't be bothered doing the sums, because it's such an outrageously incorrect claim.

FreshR only ventilates occupied areas and slows to 10% when nobody's home, the downstairs unit snoozes when everyone is upstairs and vica-versa. The average occupancy levels in 10 Low Energy Houses tested in Holland last Winter with FreshR's fitted was 35%. The FreshR HRVs reduced the average ventilation rate from 0.3ACH to 0.12ACH while maintaining air quality, this reduced the heating demand by 50%, so FreshR HRV has the capacity to reduce the heating demand of a Passive House from 15kWh/m2.annum to 7kWh/m2.annum. We've agreed a 15% lower ventilation rate with the PassivHaus Institute but Peter Warm has conservatively calculated it at a 25% lower ventilation rate but its still being negotiated.

After balancing a ducted MVHR in a Passive House in 2008, (150m3 in, 150m3 out) I noticed that if an internal door is left open the balance went off by 10%, (ie it switched to 135m3 in, 165m3 out), with 0 degree external, 20 degree internal air temperature the return air temperature would drop from 17 degrees to 14 degrees when an internal door is opened. In the winter of 2007/2008 I visited 8 clients we'd built Passive Houses for and 3 had the Ducted MVHR switched off, soon after I met Jon Kristinsson who showed me the solution which was a self balancing unit fitted into the external wall or window.

My MVHR is self-balancing and I wouldn't dream of turning it off, so I'm not entirely sure what the above rambling is trying to say. Some MVHR units are worse than others? Some MVHR units are installed wrongly? Some MVHR users do not have the system properly explained to them?

I've an interest in this product so my opinions are biased!

They do appear to be, yes!

On a more constructive note, I'd be happy to provide you with my plans if you'd like to produce an illustrative, English building regs-compliant FreshR design and costing for my house.

One issue with FreshR is it does not work if you have correctly installed cold smoke seals on doors and/or sound seals on doors. The smoke seals are required if you have 3 or more stories.

A normal ducted system will also not work, unless you put a outlet and a inlet in each fire zone.

My building inspector would not accept freshR units unless I installed additional fans in both bathrooms and the kitchen which would negate the whole point. I have long said I would prefer to control any MVHR unit with sensors rather than have it running 24/7 and plan to do so ( with the help of some boffins !)

Posted By: Viking HouseThe heat-loss from a Passive House is equal to the heat-loss from ventilation,

Posted By: djhThat simply isn't true, of course.

Noticing this old discussion, I wonder how the FreshR is regarded these days.

It seems that the misunderstanding here was that when you, Viking House, refer to 'The heat loss from a Passive House equals the heat loss from ventilation', you mean, I think, that 'The heat loss from all other causes (other than ventilation) from a Passive House equals the heat loss from ventilation'.

In other words you are saying that half the heat loss from a Passive House is from the ventilation and half is from all other causes, and not, as your statement seems somewhat reasonably to have been taken by djh to imply, that 'All the heat loss from a Passive House is from ventilation' (as the total heat loss equals, as you seem to say, the ventilation loss).

Not that I am qualified to comment on the truth of the statement, but merely that I think that this is where the misunderstanding of your statement has arisen.

Anyway, with a detached house to retrofit, ventilation is a big issue for me, so is interesting.