Heat recovery devices can help ventilation systems conserve energy: However, they cause a pressure drop in the system, and hence the system incurs an electricity consumption. In the present paper, the maximum allowable pressure drop of the recovery units is achieved from thermodynamic and economic points of view. The novelty of the research is that, unlike the existing criterion which does not differ for different cities, the introduced criteria can be calculated for each city with individual weather, economic, power plants, and energy conditions. Although the methods presented to calculate the criteria consider a broad range of effective parameters, there is no need to use complex energy simulation methods. Moreover, for each city, four types of criteria are introduced, which allows the city authorities to choose the best ones according to their city conditions, and then calculate the chosen criteria by the data of the city. In order to gain the criteria, modified enthalpy-hours and bin method variables are introduced to calculate sensible and latent energy consumption due to ventilation. The criteria are numerically calculated for Kerman city in Iran, and the results show that the recovery type and the chosen viewpoint has a considerable effect on the allowable pressure drop. The sensitivity of the results to different variables is analyzed in the end. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.