BUILD EQUINOX
“Badly constructed houses do for the healthy what badly constructed hospitals do for the sick. Once insure that the air in a house is stagnant, and sickness is certain to follow.”
- Florence Nightingale, 1859 Notes on Nursing
Our team had the chance to interview Professor Ty Newell, one of the founders of Build Equinox. Throughout our interview, he addressed many of the health benefits CERV2 can provide consumers.
Q: CERV2 is a new, "smart" approach to HVAC, what kind of benefits does it provide consumers?
"We saw the development of a residential scale "smart" ventilation system as both a means to significantly improve the indoor environment and hopefully begin turning back the prevalence of "western" ailments (asthma, allergies, migraine, depression, etc) as well as a business opportunity. In terms of "health" economics, for every dollar spent on efficient ventilation, the payback is $100 of human productivity (basically, $50/year-person of ventilation energy above what is currently used for ventilation results in an estimated $5000 of increased human cognitive productivity). On the business side of things, because this a product that hasn't existed (smart residential ventilation), our primary challenge is an educational one in which it is important to inform people about the importance of fresh air management in their home.
Q: What is one thing people don't seem to understand about their HVAC systems?
"I think the biggest misconception we see is a lack of understanding of the importance of fresh air. One cannot smell poor air quality. By the time you smell it, it is really bad. People readily understand the importance of fresh food and clean water, but the importance of fresh air in house and building design is severely lacking. Architects and builders leave it as an afterthought. That is, very few homes are designed with specific information on ductwork and instead it is left to the "trades" (as is plumbing and electric) to figure out how to run ductwork. The result is poorly designed and functioning ventilation systems. We are working hard to educate homeowners, builders and architects on the need to move ventilation systems up in importance. As Florence Nightingale comments in the 1850's, if architects and builders had to pay the medical bills of their buildings' occupants, we would see much different building designs (i.e. well ventilated)."
Choose any of the below categories and you'll be linked to a relevant study on the benefits of fresh air!
