I've used aprilaire (link) in 4 icf homes. Installed 2 in the attic and the other 2 in the basement. No problems thus far.

Good Luck.

Bunt

Dave -

I have built 2 SIPS homes that have LifeBreath brand HRV in them - both have performed very well.

Good luck,

Andy McRea

McRea Partners Inc

Dealer/Installer - Enercept SIPS

Washington State

425-941-1626

Are there any companies to avoid?  The things seem pretty simple and looks like you'd have to work at making a bad unit or is there more to them than it seems?

dgravlin,

I do not know the IMC section, but the relevant 2006 IRC  listing is M1506.2 -[Exhaust air from bathrooms and toilet rooms shall not be recirculated within a residence or to another dwelling unit and shall be exhausted directly to the outdoors. Exhaust air from bathrooms and toilet rooms shall not discharge into an attic, crawl space, or other areas inside the building.]

If I recall correctly, the Honeywell 200 series is an ERV that has a separate flow side for exhausting bath areas directly to the outside per code. There are probably others, since most HRVs/ERVs are made by just 2-3 manufacturers and relabeled by the HVAC company.
 
I do know that some HRVs/ERVs exhaust bath air and partial some of it back into the house recirc air and some to the outdoors.

This doesn't matter if:
You don't have an AHJ who is going to bust you on it - and
You have a half-way decent filtration system - or
You just ain't that picky...

Otherwise, make sure that the HRV/ERV system you choose has no physical pathway for the bath exhaust to interact directly with recirc air, or use fans.

Fans can introduce problems with negative pressurization of a tight structure, and then you get to play with motorized dampers, control integration with the HRV/ERV, or holes in the bathroom wall for makeup air, so it can definitely be cost-effective to use the HRV... Good Luck!

This is kind of an old study, but the concepts for ventilation are still very relevant.  Short answer, don't ask the person selling you an ERV or HRV if you need one.  What you need is ventilation, energy recovery is often an unnecessary add-on to help accomplish this.  Myself when I run the numbers, I find that an ERV or HRV rarely offers a reasonable return on investment.  YMMV.
 

I am going to have a hard time thinking you can fully control formaldehyde from entereing your construction site, it it used in far to many building materials.  A couple of years back, I worked with a potential client with formaldehyde sensitivity issues, she wanted to build a new house where no formaldehyde was introduced at any point during construction.  After some significant investigation on my part, I found that eliminating it was all but impossible and turned down the job as I wasn't willing to put my name on it as a guarantee that I could get it done.  I talked to her a couple of months back as I was interested in her project and wondered if it ever got done, apparently no one else was comfortable with this build job either.  There is a boatload of profit sitting on this table from soemone who has this sensitivity, I imagine there are others.

You are in a SIP forum, what are your SIPs skinned with (OSB?)?  What are you using for floor joists, again in a SIP forum I would expect engineered lumber and not something so primitive as dimenstional lumber.  And your subfloor?  And your roof deck?  What are you using for floor covering?  In your closets, what are you using for shelf material?  In your kitchen, what are you using for cabinetry and countertop?  I could go on and on, but new construction materials off-gas, and you really do want that off-gassing out of your house.

With these type of questions, the first question should be where do you live?  Best practices for ventilation in the north are not the same as best practices for ventilation in the hot humid south, and unfortunately no one (either the initial question or the responses) have indicated this critrical information.  I used to live in Houston - hot, humid, heavily polluted, and no I wasn't desiring for a high rate of air change with that.  I was a runner (before I moved there), and yet with the air quality I could hardly go 1/2 mile without stopping to catch my breath - nope I don't want to be ventilating my "clean" indoor air and exchanging it with that stuff.  In regards to the ASHRAE Standard, it doesn't take this into account either.

I think with anything we do, we should look past the immediate issues and try to think about long-term issues.  For your house, you can control many things that may minimize your ventilation needs.  However what happens when this is no longer your house?  You lose control of these things.  And this is what builders (and their HVAC subcontractors) face, we don't control what happens once the house is sold, therefore we are obligated to provide adedquate ventilation (and depending on occupancy of the house and your living requirements often too much ventilation).