yes it was like a bag of water in the plastic sock that contains the insulation, ill try sealing the insulation at both ends , ill post some photos of my set up prob tomorrow. i also installed myself.
BTW:
I saw some pressure balancers on ebay when i was looking way cheeper . I never balanced as its an older house , i opened the baffles full .

wingedfish, no problem a $1000 for labour and probably would have agreed to $2500 a unit with installation, to cover markup on the unit and other materials. Just couldn't do $4000.

bkelly, again the insulation shouldn't be wet. No expert but I'd replace.

HRV works
 

Not only does it remove the humidity, it actually does recover the heat.

Inserted a temp probe in the ducts a couple of feet from the unit (house side) exhaust 22°, fresh air 13° with the outside air measuring -9°C.

Good to hear.

There are multiple ways to do HRVs
A stand alone system with supplys in the bedrooms and living room and exhausts in the kitchens bathrooms is best but alot of labour $$$ but you can also just tie it into your supply and return ducts off a forced air system not as good but substainally cheeper

Fully ducted would have been best but since I was installing in a house complete with finished basement still think having a separate stale intake with fresh air tied to furnace a good compromise (middle picture). Think my numbers also show it worked out okay.

Here's a diagram of installs
http://www.americanaldes.com/images/...stallation.png

yes.

how did you do picture 2 if your house is finished?
picture 2 is better than picture 3 but very rare to see as you also need the house open to do that. tell u the truth Ive heard of it but never actually seen picture 2 style.


most people do picture 1 or 3.

Yep, mine was like that on my old HRV installation. The after the fact fix was to change out the insulation and really make sure the new stuff was taped off well from the in house air. Also, your HRV will probably have a feature that switches to inside air when the unit begins to freeze up from bringing in too much cold fresh air.

For your install, add a loop to the condensate tube. This keeps the HRV from drawing air from the end of the tube, which is usually sitting on the floor near the stinky floor drain.

Here is mine.

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-9hrJkRZ-L.jpg

http://www.lithicimages.com/photos/i...-jhhDmz5-L.jpg

Though furnace is wall vented, convention gas hot water heater and luckily there was room in the chimney chase. Still have the option of running a branch for stale air intake to main floor bath if ever felt like squeezing through the attic again.