ᐅ Mechanical ventilation with heat recovery in the hallway as well? We don't have that – the air feels stuffy.

Good morning everyone,

Quick question,
We have a controlled mechanical ventilation system from Wolf Excellent.

I keep noticing that the two hallways feel stuffy in the mornings. We have been living in the new build for about 1 year.
There is neither supply air nor exhaust air installed in our two hallways. Is this a mistake?

We have supply air in the following rooms:
Living room
Office
Bedroom
Child’s room
Guest room

Exhaust air:
Bathroom 1
Bathroom 2
Utility room
Dressing room
Kitchen

What do you think about this?
At the moment, I go there every morning and ventilate the hallways properly to get some air exchange.

Regards and thanks

Hallways are intended to function as air transfer zones. This means that air exchange occurs there, with air flowing from supply rooms to exhaust rooms. For this to happen, air must be able to pass through the doors. This can be achieved either by having an appropriate gap at the bottom of the door leaf or other ventilation openings.

We also don’t have any ventilation in the hallway: as @world-e says, the doors each have a gap at the bottom. That should allow the air to circulate.

Our doors definitely have a gap as well, but why is it so stuffy then?
I have no explanation for that.
The heating is off, so where is the stale air coming from?

Are your doors closed? I have to admit that many of our doors are open, and except for the utility room, the doors are usually left open anyway...

Is it stuffy now in summer? Or also in winter?
Is your mechanical ventilation system running? Incorrectly set? It doesn’t run continuously... or incorrectly installed? Supply and exhaust air switched?

Not all doors are always closed, but most of them are. We can feel the fresh air intake, so it definitely needs to work properly.
Is it correctly adjusted? No idea, our heating installer handled that. The only thing we know is that it runs at reduced operation from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. Otherwise, it hums.
In winter, I didn’t really notice any stuffy air, but I don’t remember exactly. Because of the heating, it was always quite warm, and we tried adjusting the heating a bit.