There was a house fire in Tignish, PEI on Sunday, July 5, 2015. Thankfully no one seems to have been injured. According to the Tignish Fire Department,  the cause may have been an air exchanger in the house.

These air exchangers or as their properly known, heat recovery ventilators (HRV’s), have been linked to a number of fires in North America over the last several years. In many cases the cause was an overheating motor within the unit.

A common HRV. Note that they can be under a variety of different commercial names and look different from the unit shown here.

Venmar, the company that manufactures them, announced a recall in 2010. The recall was expanded in November of 2014. Note that many of these products will not have the name Venmar on them and that they may be under a variety of different badge names.

If you have any kind of an HRV in your home you should visit the following websites for more information on how to mitigate this risk:

Government of Canada Recall Page
Venmar Safety Upgrade Program 2010
Venmar Safety Upgrade Program 2014

There is also a phone number that you can call:  1-866-441-4645