Ventilation, heat recovery & air quality · Cowlmarsh & the marsh parishes · since 2016
Your house can breathe without opening the heating bill.
Second Wind fixes the air nobody sees: heat-recovery ventilators that swap stale for fresh and keep ninety per cent of the heat doing it, balanced ductwork that neither suffocates the bedrooms nor pressurizes the hall, and filtration sized to what actually floats in marsh air. We measure the house first — CO₂, humidity, pressure — then we design.
The audit is the product: four sensors, two hours, one report — CO₂ overnight, humidity, pressure balance and a filter-grade read of what is in your air. audit@secondwind.example · (555) 416-0459.
Services
The four systems
01
Heat-recovery ventilation (HRV)
The lungs of a tight house: stale air out through a core that hands its heat to the fresh air coming in, so winter ventilation costs a tenth of an open window instead of the whole boiler. Cores sized to the house, ducted to reach every bedroom, balanced to the litre — and commissioned with the readings on a sheet you keep.
02
Energy recovery (ERV) for the marsh air
Where HRV moves heat, ERV moves heat and moisture — the difference between a house that is fresh in July and one that is fresh but damp. On the marsh, summer humidity is the harder problem, and an ERV core strips it at the door instead of letting the dehumidifier chase it room by room.
03
Balanced ductwork & make-up air
The house as a system: exhaust that is matched by supply so the bedrooms are not depressurizing against the chimney, kitchen and bath fans that actually clear the room they are rated for, and make-up air for the range hood that would otherwise pull the fireplace backwards. Balanced means measured — we leave the numbers on the commissioning sheet.
04
Filtration & source control
MERV-13 and better at the unit, sealed frames so air goes through the media instead of around it, and — where the audit shows it — source control first: the dryer venting indoors, the garage sharing a return, the humidity that is a drainage problem wearing an air-quality costume. The cheapest filter is the one the problem never reaches.
How it goes
Measure, design, balance, prove
Ventilation is the one trade where the guess costs more than the instrument. Every job runs the same four gates, and the last one is the proof.
The air audit — two hours, four sensors
CO₂ logged overnight in the worst bedroom, humidity traced to its source, pressure tested room by room, and the filter question answered by what the cassette actually caught. The report explains the house to you in four pages, and it is yours whoever does the work.
The design, from the readings
Air changes calculated from the volume you actually have, duct routes that reach the rooms that read worst, and a unit chosen for the marsh — ERV where the humidity says so, HRV where the winters say otherwise. The design names every component and its reason.
The install, balanced to the litre
Ducts sealed and tested to leakage class, registers placed to sweep rather than dump, and every branch dampered to the design’s flow. A balanced system is silent, draftless, and boring — which in ventilation is the compliment.
Commissioning & the proof sheet
Flows measured at every register with the readings against the design, core efficiency confirmed, and the controls walked through twice — once with us, once with the manual. The proof sheet is the warranty’s first page: if the numbers are not on it, the work is not done.
The wall
Houses that stopped yawning at breakfast
We spent three winters assuming we were tired because of the children. The audit showed the bedroom at 2,800 parts per million by morning — the level where a boardroom gets drowsy — and the HRV fixed it in a week of work. The house is warm, the windows stay shut, and everyone sleeps like the house is breathing for them. Which, it turns out, is the entire idea.
Rates
The audit card
The audit is charged because it is the product: instruments, hours, and a report that names your house’s air by number. It is refunded in full against any system installed within six months — diagnosis first, always.
The air audit$240
Four sensors, two hours, four-page report — yours whoever does the work
HRV supply & installfrom $4,800
Unit, core, controls, sealed and commissioned, proof sheet included
ERV supply & installfrom $5,400
The marsh variant — heat and moisture handled at the core
Balanced ductwork, per run$310
Sealed, tested, dampered to design flow
Make-up air connection$680
Range hood or fireplace, matched to the exhaust it serves
Filter upgrade & seal$190
MERV-13 frames that stop the bypass, first media set included
Core service, annual$140
Wash, inspect, re-balance; readings logged for the file
The audit, refunded−$240
Credited against any system installed within six months
The report found our dryer venting into the crawl space — eleven years of it — before anyone tried to sell us a machine. We had the vent fixed, one bathroom fan balanced, and the air-quality problem was mostly over. That kind of honesty is why they got the HRV job anyway.
Three quotes, and only theirs led with instruments: two hours of sensors, then a design with numbers on every line. The install was quiet, the proof sheet matched the design to the litre, and the house has stopped clicking and sighing at midnight.
Our range hood could pull the fireplace smoke backwards on a still night — a fact we discovered via the smell, repeatedly. The make-up air line fixed it in a day, and the audit explained in one page what I had failed to explain to two other contractors with diagrams.
The proof-sheet promise
Every system is commissioned with measured flows at every register, and the readings go on a sheet you keep. If the numbers drift more than ten per cent inside three years, we re-balance for free — an unmeasured ventilation system is a fan with a marketing budget, and we do not install those.
Fair questions
Do I need a ventilator, or can I just open windows?
Open windows work beautifully and cost whatever your boiler says they cost. In January, nobody does it, and the CO₂ log shows it — 2,500 parts per million by morning is a house that has been breathing its own air for nine hours. The ventilator is the window that never gets shut on the heating.
Will a ventilation system make the house colder?
Measured against doing nothing, no — and measured against the windows you would otherwise crack, it is a large saving: the core hands roughly nine-tenths of the outgoing heat to the incoming air. The audit models the arithmetic on your house and your fuel bill before you commit to anything.
What is actually in our air that a filter catches?
On the marsh, mostly what the wind carries — pollen, spore loads off the reed beds, road dust — plus whatever the house makes itself. MERV-13 media catches the pollen and the spores outright and a useful share of the finer fraction; the audit’s cassette tells you what your particular air holds before anyone sells you a grade.
How loud is an HRV?
Properly installed, quieter than the fridge, because the noise is in the ducts and the ducts are sized to be lazy — oversized on purpose, dampered to flow, isolated from the framing. If a system needs to be heard to be believed, it was designed by someone who never read the fan curve.
Does this replace our HVAC?
It completes it: heating and cooling change temperature, ventilation changes the air itself, and the two are designed to agree — the make-up air your range hood wants is the same arithmetic your furnace blower lives by. We design and install the ventilation layer, commission it against the whole house, and work with your heating contractor rather than around them.
Measure the air. Then decide.
Two hours, four sensors, a report that names your house’s air by number — and a full refund against any system it recommends. audit@secondwind.example