ᐅ Building Without a Ventilation System Using Porous Clay Blocks?

Hello kamnik,

it’s surprising how much anger you bring to this discussion with your (conspiracy theory) accusations. Take a page from the Buddhists in your part-time adopted home: don’t claim absolute certainty for your own beliefs.

We would like to support you, but unfortunately your comments completely miss the point of the original question. My advice: start your own thread where everyone interested in debating your ideas can join the discussion!

I found Fabian’s original question more interesting than your remarks.

Best regards,
Olaf

o.s. schrieb:
Hello kamnik,

It's surprising how aggressively you swing the (conspiracy) club here. Take a leaf out of the Buddhists’ book in your part-time adopted home: no absolute claim to your own religion.

We would like to support you, but unfortunately your arguments miss the point of the original question completely. My advice: start your own thread where everyone interested in debating your theses can join the discussion!

I found Fabian’s original question more interesting than your comments.

Regards
Olaf

The problem is that those with communist leanings often try to label dissenters as mentally ill when they run out of arguments.
It’s always difficult for the whole generation of followers when others think and act against the current.
In sports terms, you could say: not exactly sporting.

But you have to take it all lightly.

P.S. Stock up on 10 credit cards, get two mortgage bonds notarized into your land registry entries, pay until retirement... but don’t complain in your pension: "…there was no money left for living..."

Basically, only the three B’s matter: beer, babes, bikes!

Bauexperte schrieb:

This is a planning approach tailored to a specific life situation; you copied the views from the entrance page of my website in the single-family house section. These views are an example of a cube design.

Great selling point? Respect!
Tailored to a specific life situation (I have to remember that)
If they used lime-cement plaster on the walls, I would consider this construction method extremely negligent towards the builder.
Reducing the roof overhang like this has caused many homeowners in the Munich area and surroundings to need new windows.
Reason: Due to leaching of lime materials, lime residues deposit on the glass and corrode the glass surface. This damage could have been avoided if the district offices and building authorities had left open alternative construction options – but builders were not allowed to do so. Similar damages cannot even be reclaimed because the officials responsible are now in retirement homes (due to Alzheimer’s) and no longer accountable.

Bauexperte schrieb:

Many of your “old” masters produced this dangerous nonsense. Incidentally, just like their “estimates” of the heating energy demand for a single-family home. I know quite a few of them and “owe” them a lot of additional and unnecessary work. Recently, one of your old “masters” decided on short notice to install a heating unit with 3 kW higher capacity – better safe than sorry. Apart from the fact that it is completely unnecessary – the heat load calculation supports the installed heating unit – it would have cost my clients about €5,000-6,000 more. So much for “old masters.”

What does a 3 kW higher heating unit mean? Which heating system was installed and what output does it provide?
Heating is generally a complex subject. At trade fairs, every manufacturer claims, “My system is the best – never had problems,” etc.
Yeah, sure.
Gas condensing boiler plus proper controls (including remote access, meaning worldwide access to the boiler)
Domestic hot water: AEG eco boiler for shower and sink (so you have boiled water rather than contaminated standing water from the 1000-liter (264-gallon) tank, which is fully emptied only every two months, plus circulation pump power wasted for nothing).

Bauexperte schrieb:

Here is a comment on the flat roof directive for interested laypersons:

“Since October 2008, the new flat roof directive
specifies that the technical rules also apply to
waterproofing against non-pressurized water. However, it requires compliance with DIN 18195, which is expressed in Section 3 – Rules for waterproofing used roofs and areas.”

Flat roofs are always sources of problems. All flat roofs are generally covered with either wood or steel structures.
Anyone who has had flat roof repairs would certainly not want flat roofs again. Wherever sludge accumulates in the corners, moisture eventually penetrates into the underlying layers.
No DIN standard will help you with that; only good liability insurance for the frontline workers.

Bauexperte schrieb:

If the respective builder uses Douglas fir instead of spruce and maintains the facade, this statement is invalid. But – and here we are back with you – Douglas fir is naturally more expensive.
Persistent high moisture requires pressure impregnation.”

How do you expect to maintain a vertically nailed facade over five meters (about 16 feet) high after five years?
a) Set up scaffolding
b) Remove battens, sand down, oil or impregnate with a compressor.

How else would you access the back side of the battens?
My personal opinion: a senseless blunder by planners, without much brainpower involved.
I cannot call this anything other than a design failure. Then no roof overhang, so that a lot of water runs down the walls and lets the material weather even more.

If vertical overlapping boards were installed, as was common in the past, you could apply facade-protective paint every five years using a compressor spray and have peace for the next five years.
But instead, they screw on planned obsolescence materials that fail after 10 years.
Then you have to replace them.

I cannot understand how anyone can still award contracts for such work?
Looking back:
a) No roof overhang to save materials
b) Vertical battens on the facade, so work has to be redone after 10 years
c) Flat roofs leading to construction damage after a few years
d) Cube and barn-style shapes with side sliding doors for the 4.5 m x 2.8 m (15 ft x 9 ft) sliding glass window units (main thing: expensive and complicated)
e) Additional awning technology for the large windows, so you don’t get heatstroke in the living room from direct sunlight
f) Overpriced air conditioning systems to remove heat from the house when the sun is fully overhead
and so on, and so forth.

Bauexperte schrieb:

There is a petition committee – also in Brussels. Ask your questions there!

Not all of them, that’s true – I still preferred the very old church or cathedral builders over the “old masters or master builders” you generally praise.

Petition committee? Ah, yes; the answer is total refusal and simply saying no.

The original couple built their house themselves over 80 years ago, digging the cellar by hand and rotating the returning wall in the gable by 90 degrees (which not many can do anymore today), and it is still standing.
His daily work: nothing to do with construction, more with steel.

Today’s construction industry has become unimaginative to an extraordinary degree. What really annoys me as a Baroque enthusiast: these straight lines in today’s modern architecture – so boring.
I appreciate the Arab world for still having creativity, except in the slave state of Dubai.

I simply recommend everyone here to use the ignore function... it works great.

Stand inside a prefab house in summer and then in a brick house, with an outside temperature of 40°C (104°F) in summer.
In the prefab house, the heat accumulates and has to be removed by an expensive air conditioning system.
In the brick house, I don’t have this problem at all because the bricks provide sufficient cooling.

Kamnik, you’ve probably had the experience that a brick house felt cooler in summer than a prefab house you were in...
However, drawing general conclusions from that is not very helpful...

There are certainly prefab houses with poor summer heat protection... But it is also possible to achieve good heat protection in a prefab house!

By the way, bricks do not cool... they absorb heat, warm up slowly, and thereby delay the heat from reaching the interior... In the evening or at night, they gradually release the stored heat again. If there is an insulation layer in front of the bricks, this heating is further delayed.
The ideal combination is therefore an insulation layer, which due to its low mass absorbs very little heat, followed by a heavy layer with high heat storage capacity... for example bricks, solid wood panels, gypsum boards, etc. The thicker, the better.
Many cheap, older prefab houses often saved on this mass, which is why they sometimes had poor heat protection.
Much more important for heat protection is shading windows! On a sunny day, so much heat enters through windows that the wall hardly matters anymore...
Older buildings often have very small windows compared to modern (prefab) houses. If these are not properly shaded using external sun protection, problems arise!

Prefab houses do not necessarily require air conditioning if properly designed, just like solid (masonry) constructions...

This is a common misconception. People open the windows in winter because their throat feels scratchy, and they are led to believe that oxygen levels must be low.
That is exactly where the problem lies.
The issue is that heating dries out the indoor air. Then comes the scratchy or uncomfortable throat, and people open the windows wide.
By using small humidifiers, I maintain enough humidity in the room and do not have to keep opening the windows—because oxygen levels are usually sufficient.
But it also depends on the heating system. If the heating stove/Bullerjan burns oxygen inside the room volume, you need to supply fresh air; this can be done with a very simple control, a fresh air duct plus a fan, without having to open the windows wide.

Again: This applies to your old building with an open combustion appliance inside... not to a modern new building! You don’t have problems with overly dry air without ventilation systems — quite the opposite!

I transfer a lot of knowledge from building technology from the 1980s to today.

And here lies your problem... Today’s houses cannot be directly compared. Whether you like it or not is a different matter...
The fact is that nowadays houses must be well insulated and practically airtight!

If you apply old approaches to new houses without adjustment, you get exactly the effect that nothing fits, everything is a mess, and you start romanticizing the good old days...

But people are getting softer and softer? Just try camping outside in winter, that toughens you up + washing yourself in cold lake water with normal soap in the morning?

You complain about extra costs but don’t want to acknowledge the benefits... With the same argument, I could ask why you have electricity and running water or buy clothing, etc. — you could just camp in a tent in the garden, which is by far the cheapest option!
Calling others soft while flying to Thailand every winter yourself...

When I read “almost airtight house,” my alarm bells go off.
Since the 1970s, there have been wall vents, even exhaust devices for cooking stations have been standard?

?
What alarm bells? That’s just how it is nowadays... and now you bring up wall vents and exhaust devices? I thought you were against fans and such...
So what is it?

The bigger problem is the overinsulation. The local inspector reports miserable mold infestations... not in old existing buildings... no, mainly in renovated buildings that have been basically sealed airtight with super windows and ultra insulation. No air gets through anymore, people want to save energy, and boom—mold grows in the house.

Exactly! That’s what we’ve been saying all along... well-insulated house → ventilation system...
That’s why the original poster asked... and you were the one telling him that a ventilation system is unnecessary, etc...
That would then lead exactly to that described problem... the house no longer ventilates itself through cracks, joints, and leaky masonry/windows, so it must be ventilated more frequently manually or with a controlled mechanical ventilation system...

What are you trying to tell us here? That your initial opinions were dangerously wrong and the original poster should definitely include a ventilation system to avoid living in a mold farm anytime soon?

Conclusion: A low-energy house only pays off for the planner because they can pocket money.

Whether and when it pays off is secondary for now... The fact is that today you have to build such a house! It doesn’t help the original poster if you give advice based on “high-energy houses” just because you personally don’t believe in low-energy construction...

Or did you just want to spout your barroom slogans here and used the original poster’s topic as a pretext?

Hello everyone,

thank you very much for the helpful advice.
I will now plan my house with a ventilation system. The idea of window vents also sounded interesting.

P.S. It’s a pity that so many posts missed the point. I’m not interested in someone having a basement of 400m² (4,300 sq ft) and 20 cars. I don’t think that was my question?

Best regards, Fabian