Homes should provide a healthy sanctuary for their occupants, and HVAC can achieve that goal by providing better air quality and a constant flow of fresh and filtered air. However, better air quality comes at a cost.
“We have a lot of solutions to improve air quality, but we have to be able to communicate the value of indoor air quality (IAQ) to get people to pay the added cost,” says Panasonic’s IAQ expert, Ken Nelson. “Anything that raises the price of a house diminishes the sale.”
Value of indoor air quality
For example, a system that ensures indoor air quality would increase the price of a new house, but the builder or realtor would likely be unable to articulate the value of the system to a new homebuyer.
A system to ensure better air quality would be invisible to a potential homeowner, and the value would not be obvious unless it is carefully communicated. The value of indoor air quality is not in dispute but getting that message across is a challenge.
Solution to improve air quality
“The challenge is that any solution to improve air quality has to be sold, and it’s a function of understanding the balance of cost, price and value,” says Nelson. “It’s a sellable concept to the buyer, but you have to be able to explain it, bring it up, put it out there. Whose job is it to make sure everybody in the purchase chain has an understanding of air quality?”
As group sales manager of ventilation at Panasonic Eco Systems, North America, Nelson has a stake in promoting a higher level of communication about the value of indoor air quality. He also sells a solution to meet the challenge, a system that can also help homebuilders stand out in the real estate market.
Panasonic OASYS HVAC and indoor air system
Designed for highly airtight and insulated houses, the Panasonic OASYS HVAC and indoor air system ensures consistent indoor temperature throughout the home.
The system combines a ductless mini-split air conditioner with a continuous heat exchanger and an energy recovery ventilator (ERV), which exchanges stale indoor air with fresh outdoor air while also transferring heat and moisture between the two air streams. The ERV reduces the load on the air conditioner and suppresses PM2.5 (fine inhalable particles).
The OASYS system takes in fresh outdoor air, filters it, tempers it to the homeowner’s temperature setting, and then circulates it constantly throughout the house for approximately four air changes per hour while continuously monitoring the air for comfort.
DC motor-driven ventilation fans
Pushing air through six-inch ducts throughout the house are small, DC motor-driven ventilation fans, which are quieter and use less energy. Constant air flow controls humidity throughout the house with perpetual air movement and ventilation to help prevent excess moisture and mold.
Smaller fans drive air throughout the house, and perhaps 25 supply fans might be used in a typical house, and each fan has its own 6-in. duct. Supply air is filtered to a MERV 13 standard in case there are PM2.5 particulates from surrounding sources.
OASYS system features
In contrast, a conventional home HVAC system might use a large, central fan that pushes air through a larger trunk line, typically located in the attic, and then through smaller ducts to each room. In a conventional system, fans operate intermittently based on heating or cooling cycles, while the OASYS system features continuous air flow 24/7.
OASYS, which has been deployed extensively in Japan and throughout the world, recently entered the U.S. market. Worldwide, 10,000 to 15,000 houses per year are built using the system.
OASYS system concept
In January 2025, Panasonic opened the OASYS concept home in Houston, Texas. The 2,700-square-foot home is being used to exhibit the OASYS system concept and to offer firsthand experience to business-to-business customers such as builders.
Panasonic seeks to expand its central air conditioning business in the U.S., leveraging a competitive strength in ventilation fans, and to promote initiatives to optimize home energy management in the future, such as linking the system to other energy-saving devices.
OASYS installations
The OASYS design team works with builder and design partners and energy-raters to help them understand how the system works and what is required. For example, a tight-envelope, high-performance house is needed.
Globally, many OASYS installations involve residences in the 1,200-square-foot range, which highlights opportunities to use the technology in multi-tenant housing applications in the U.S. The strategy is to work with “OASYS-certified” builders to ensure the concept is deployed effectively.
Negative health effects
OASYS is not an easy retrofit because it requires additional pathways through and between the floors, and because existing housing may not be sufficiently airtight.
During the height of the COVID pandemic, IAQ briefly became top-of-mind, but awareness has waned since then, and many lessons learned from the pandemic have been pushed aside. Today, there is less concern about how an aerosolized microbe might get into the lungs with negative health effects, for example. Greater awareness is needed, says Nelson.
Superior indoor air quality
Failing to provide superior indoor air quality has consequences, but they may not be obvious or immediate, he says. Rather, they will become obvious over time. For example, a single burning candle might emit a PM2.5 particulate, which would pass through a resident’s bloodstream without obvious effect. However, the consequences of 10 years of burning candles, or the equivalent of other contaminants, would likely create adverse health effects.
Better ventilation is key. “Instead of heating and cooling driving the ventilation, we have ventilation driving the heating and cooling,” says Nelson.
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