One thing we noticed early on in the winter about our house is that the rooms get condensated in the mornings - especially the spare room which was basically getting wet walls. We were also finding the house very cold which we hadn’t really expected, even with a gas heater and a space heater running. We started investigating dehumidifers and ventilation systems.
After costing up a decent dehumidifier ($500-700) and getting quotes from Moisture Master, DVS and HRV we decided to go with HRV as they were going to install vents in each room. To get it all installed cost about $2000, then the maintenance costs are about $60 a year. It costs under 10 cents a day to run - which is much cheaper than all the heaters and mould damage! There are also heaps of health benefits and other information we were talked through that helped make our decision. If it hadn’t been HRV it would have been DVS - they were very close. Moisture Master was WAY more expensive for more features that we didn’t really need (i.e. heating).
The guys came in to install it early one morning and were gone 2 hours later. They cleaned up the (minimal) mess they made and gave me a short demo on how to use it. We were also provided with our Code of Compliance certificate - something I didn’t realise we’d have to have, so if anyone gets one of these installed make sure you get this.
The house dried out for about 3 weeks before we really started to notice the difference - even though the house wasn’t actually being heated it was dry air inside it which made it warmer. After we installed the HRV we didn’t use a heater for the rest of the winter. It’s amazing!