[Delphinus]

I notice a huge difference in air quality with houses with HRV's too. In fact it's code now for houses of a certain R rating (R2000?) that they require HRV's.

Venting does work too but my understanding is that you rely on open windows, the cracks under doors, or just the general non-air-tightness of the house to replenish the air that's drawn out. Because it's both taking air in and pulling air out the HRV does not have to fight against negative air pressure.

But it's a hefty investment, much the same as say, retrofitting central A/C into a house or something along those lines.

If you have a high efficiency furnace one intermediary or workaround step you can take to deal with excessive humidity is to run your furnace fan on 24/7. I don't recommend this on a non-high-eff furnace - I tried it at my old house and the sticker shock on the next month's utility bill was pretty bad. The high efficiency furnaces have DC motor drives though, so they use a fraction of the electrical draw that their AC counterparts do. I wish I had known this when selecting a furnace. The home builder described the difference to me as something like 5% added efficiency on the combustion and in hindsight I should have done more homework than just taking the builder's word for things.