I'm looking at purchasing a highly insulated house built in 1984 and I'm having some trouble identifying part of the system. The house has 3 wall-mounted split units and supplemental propane heaters. It also has this unit that the realtor is calling "a heat exchanger that ducts air from outside and conditions it and delivers it to the rooms". I can't tell if it is an early HRV or some kind of heat pump system. I would have guessed HRV but the ducts and registers seemed rather large for that. The Central unit was located on the ceiling of a closet on the first floor. Anything to be avoided?

Ok so one photo shows a Freidrich mini split the others show a duct system.

Yeah, the mini splits are obvious but the unlabeled "duct system" is supposedly this "heat exchanger" and I was wondering if anybody had seen something like it from the 80s. I am pretty sure it's an older HRV at this point - I was just thrown by the size of the ducting and registers as compared to more modern HRVs.

I saw an hrv installed in 1988; had 8" room duct runs. Probably similar to what you have. That one I saw is still working fine.

Thanks Bob, I think that confirms it for me. I appreciate it.