ᐅ Floor vents (fresh air supply) located under sofas and desks?

Hello,

we currently need to decide whether to have floor outlets or wall outlets for our mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery.

According to our installer, it doesn’t matter if a piece of furniture (sofa, desk, etc.) is positioned over the outlet, as long as there is some clearance underneath, for example by the legs. So the sofa just shouldn’t completely cover the outlet.

Is this really the case? Would a sofa approximately 10cm (4 inches) above the floor, positioned over the outlet, not affect the airflow?

Do yourselves a favor and install it in the ceiling or wall. The floor is always the least suitable option, both visually and functionally!

Hello,

well, if it really works to place a sofa over it, then the appearance is no longer an issue since it won’t be visible.

And functionality... Why is a floor outlet considered unfavorable?

I don’t think this is a problem. If the system is properly designed, the gap of a door is enough to allow 20-25 m³/h (cubic meters per hour) of airflow.

But I agree with the previous commenter: put it in the ceiling. The floor would be my very last choice. With walls (especially exterior walls), the structural engineer might have concerns, and with monolithic construction, the energy consultant might object.

In the ceiling, we already have all the outlets in the basement and all the exhaust outlets on the ground floor.

We would prefer to see as little of the technical equipment as possible. If it could work behind or under the sofa, that would be ideal.
On the upper floor, the exhaust outlets in the bathrooms will be on the walls, and it would also be nice if the supply air outlets in the bedroom and the children's rooms could be "hidden" somewhere.

Bookstar schrieb:
Do yourselves a favor and install it in the ceiling or wall. The floor is always the worst possible solution, both visually and functionally!

Oh really? That’s new to me. Visually and functionally, floor outlets are absolutely on par with wall or ceiling installations when properly planned.

In some cases, they can even be more cost-effective since piping can be reduced by supplying two floors on the same level.

So my advice:

Do yourselves a favor and install the outlets in the floor.

To get back to the question: a desk is definitely not an obstacle for the mechanical ventilation system.

With a sofa, it’s obviously more critical because it restricts air mixing, but still, the 20/30/40 cubic meters of air from the mechanical ventilation are blown into the room—it just has to circulate around the sofa first.