Remove ERV?

Bought a house a few years ago, came with an Aprilaire ERV installed, pictured below. It is wired so that it only comes on with the HVAC. Our house was built in 1958, and this was installed in 2006, during a major home remodel (kitchen, windows, HVAC, and bathrooms).

We live in Nor Cal, East Bay specifically. Hot dry summers, highs in low 100s, cools off in the evenings. Very little humidity, maybe 30-40% average. Mild winters, couple big rain storms every year, but very rarely frost and never snow. Humidity rarely above about 60%.

We unplugged the thing about 6 months ago, and noticed literally no difference, heater or AC.

I get the concept - circulate fresh air into the have system, but our system rarely runs more than about 20 minutes a handful of times per day in the winter, so not much air circulation happening there. In summer, we use the whole house fan as soon as it cools off in the evening, so plenty of fresh air then.

My wife and I are considering removing this thing. It is occupying very valuable closet space, and we don't see a need for the machine. The nuts and bolts of removing it is pretty straight forward, unhook the ducting going to it, and remove it from the wall.

There are two ducts going from the ERV to the outside, via roof vents. Those I can just unhook the duct, and leave the roof vent, easy peasy. There is a duct going from the ERV to inside the house, easy enough to just cap that off too.

The only question I have is what to do with the ducting going from the ERC to the HVAC intake. Should I just cap that off too, or should I run a fresh air intake to that, in addition to the internal intake? I've seen a few different methods online, hoping to get a better reason why/why not to have fresh air duct into the HVAC intake.

Thanks for your insight!

Bought a house a few years ago, came with an Aprilaire ERV installed, pictured below. It is wired so that it only comes on with the HVAC. Our house was built in 1958, and this was installed in 2006, during a major home remodel (kitchen, windows, HVAC, and bathrooms).

We live in Nor Cal, East Bay specifically. Hot dry summers, highs in low 100s, cools off in the evenings. Very little humidity, maybe 30-40% average. Mild winters, couple big rain storms every year, but very rarely frost and never snow. Humidity rarely above about 60%.

We unplugged the thing about 6 months ago, and noticed literally no difference, heater or AC.

I get the concept - circulate fresh air into the have system, but our system rarely runs more than about 20 minutes a handful of times per day in the winter, so not much air circulation happening there. In summer, we use the whole house fan as soon as it cools off in the evening, so plenty of fresh air then.

My wife and I are considering removing this thing. It is occupying very valuable closet space, and we don't see a need for the machine. The nuts and bolts of removing it is pretty straight forward, unhook the ducting going to it, and remove it from the wall.

There are two ducts going from the ERV to the outside, via roof vents. Those I can just unhook the duct, and leave the roof vent, easy peasy. There is a duct going from the ERV to inside the house, easy enough to just cap that off too.

The only question I have is what to do with the ducting going from the ERC to the HVAC intake. Should I just cap that off too, or should I run a fresh air intake to that, in addition to the internal intake? I've seen a few different methods online, hoping to get a better reason why/why not to have fresh air duct into the HVAC intake.

Thanks for your insight!