Hello everyone,
We are planning our house build (timber prefabricated house) and are currently considering whether to include a central ventilation system or not. We would appreciate hearing about your experiences with this.
Did you build with or without one, and how satisfied are you with it in everyday life? Is the air inside the house comfortable, or perhaps too dry due to low humidity?
We expect or hope that such a system will provide constantly fresh, unused air inside the house and help prevent mold growth in a tightly built new home. In practice, we won’t be ventilating the house by opening windows 2–3 times a day. To be honest, we already find ventilating by opening windows on cross-ventilation once a day to be a hassle. More realistically, we would occasionally open windows when we feel like it. (We currently live in an older building, where air exchange is not an issue.)
On the other hand, there is the question of how often you actually need to ventilate in a diffusion-open timber construction. Excess moisture should be sufficiently removed anyway. Also, on 160 m² (1,722 sq ft) of living space, any produced moisture and CO2 should distribute well enough.
Such a system is not exactly inexpensive, and we do not know anyone in our family or circle of friends who has had mold in their home, even though they only occasionally open windows and do not ventilate continuously.
It is hard to judge whether this is a great feature to be very glad about later or an expensive investment with little added value. Therefore, we would really appreciate your experiences and advice on this 🙂
Best regards,
Sebastian
We are planning our house build (timber prefabricated house) and are currently considering whether to include a central ventilation system or not. We would appreciate hearing about your experiences with this.
Did you build with or without one, and how satisfied are you with it in everyday life? Is the air inside the house comfortable, or perhaps too dry due to low humidity?
We expect or hope that such a system will provide constantly fresh, unused air inside the house and help prevent mold growth in a tightly built new home. In practice, we won’t be ventilating the house by opening windows 2–3 times a day. To be honest, we already find ventilating by opening windows on cross-ventilation once a day to be a hassle. More realistically, we would occasionally open windows when we feel like it. (We currently live in an older building, where air exchange is not an issue.)
On the other hand, there is the question of how often you actually need to ventilate in a diffusion-open timber construction. Excess moisture should be sufficiently removed anyway. Also, on 160 m² (1,722 sq ft) of living space, any produced moisture and CO2 should distribute well enough.
Such a system is not exactly inexpensive, and we do not know anyone in our family or circle of friends who has had mold in their home, even though they only occasionally open windows and do not ventilate continuously.
It is hard to judge whether this is a great feature to be very glad about later or an expensive investment with little added value. Therefore, we would really appreciate your experiences and advice on this 🙂
Best regards,
Sebastian
So, we built a 125m² (1,345 sq ft) house in 2018 without a mechanical ventilation system. It’s a timber frame construction with triple-glazed windows featuring trickle vents. We can’t really complain. We ventilate in the morning and evening, and at night the bedroom window is tilted open because we like it that way. There is no musty air, no mold, nothing. Our gas consumption is 550m³ (19,420 cu ft) per year, and the temperature is 23°C (73°F) everywhere except the bedroom and bathroom, which are 24°C (75°F). We don’t need a mechanical ventilation system.
We have a mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery in our solid-built house from 2020, which we are currently selling. One of the main reasons we want to build again at our new location instead of buying an existing property is that we would like to have one again.
I appreciate the freedom of not having to worry about ventilation at all. I can open windows if I want to, but I don’t have to. The mechanical ventilation system takes care of everything—even after showering or bathing if you want to.
I also enjoy how quickly my laundry dries in the utility room with the exhaust there. It’s amazing. I once stayed with family for a while and hand-washed some clothes, hung them up in their heating room, and was surprised the next day to find them still damp. You get used to the luxury of mechanical ventilation very quickly.
My husband and I are both allergy sufferers, and our system has a pollen filter. Combined with our laziness to ventilate manually, this means we can enjoy comfortably pollen-free sleep.
However, we’re always shocked when we go outside and get hit with a full blast of pollen—but of course, that’s not the ventilation system’s fault. 😉
I appreciate the freedom of not having to worry about ventilation at all. I can open windows if I want to, but I don’t have to. The mechanical ventilation system takes care of everything—even after showering or bathing if you want to.
I also enjoy how quickly my laundry dries in the utility room with the exhaust there. It’s amazing. I once stayed with family for a while and hand-washed some clothes, hung them up in their heating room, and was surprised the next day to find them still damp. You get used to the luxury of mechanical ventilation very quickly.
My husband and I are both allergy sufferers, and our system has a pollen filter. Combined with our laziness to ventilate manually, this means we can enjoy comfortably pollen-free sleep.
However, we’re always shocked when we go outside and get hit with a full blast of pollen—but of course, that’s not the ventilation system’s fault. 😉
Thanks for sharing all your experiences!
Are there any people who installed one and regret it?
🙂
It does seem like those who have a ventilation system really appreciate it. The others either belong to the passionate natural ventilation group or just don’t know any better. 😀
I mean, if you already like to ventilate a lot, cross-ventilation might be fine. But I find it especially annoying in the morning before work and in the evening when you’re relaxing, especially when it’s cold outside (which is why we don’t do it regularly…). Also, if you hang laundry in the room, the humidity rises so much that you have to open windows more often.
Of course, it’s nice to open the windows to hear birds or smell the fresh air outside, but only whenever you feel like it.
And when running costs and heating savings balance each other out, how about maintenance costs? Do you need to buy new filters often, or is it enough to clean the existing filters regularly?
Are there any people who installed one and regret it?
🙂
It does seem like those who have a ventilation system really appreciate it. The others either belong to the passionate natural ventilation group or just don’t know any better. 😀
I mean, if you already like to ventilate a lot, cross-ventilation might be fine. But I find it especially annoying in the morning before work and in the evening when you’re relaxing, especially when it’s cold outside (which is why we don’t do it regularly…). Also, if you hang laundry in the room, the humidity rises so much that you have to open windows more often.
Of course, it’s nice to open the windows to hear birds or smell the fresh air outside, but only whenever you feel like it.
And when running costs and heating savings balance each other out, how about maintenance costs? Do you need to buy new filters often, or is it enough to clean the existing filters regularly?
SebbSebb schrieb:
And if the operating costs versus heating savings break even, what about the maintenance costs? Do you often need to buy new filters, or is it enough to clean the existing filters regularly? Cleaning the filters doesn’t really work. I tried blowing compressed air and then washing them, but the results were only so-so, so I stopped. My mechanical ventilation manufacturer recommends replacing them twice a year. For two filters (one G4, one F7), that costs about 50€ (approximately 55 USD). We are also planning to install an additional filter mat on the intake air side (to block pollen and larger particles). This might extend the replacement intervals.
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