ᐅ Ventilation System – What to Do When Planning to Change the Use of a Space?

Thank you for your help!
That definitely helps us a lot!
The appointment is also scheduled with the planner, I had expressed that incorrectly. Let's see what he says about it. But it's reassuring to know that the pipes can be "simply" reconnected.

The question remains whether this is really absolutely necessary. Our office doesn’t even have a ventilation system 🙂 Bathrooms/toilets and the kitchen obviously need exhaust, but something like that is usually planned from the start anyway.

We have been thinking for a long time about whether or not to install a ventilation system. Now we are fairly certain that we will install one (among other reasons, to prevent mold caused by incorrect ventilation). We initially considered installing one only for the residential unit and not for the office area. However, that doesn’t really make sense. It’s still unclear whether the office area might be rented out long-term and whether the tenants would ventilate properly...??

Lile08 schrieb:
So, can you simply switch the supply and exhaust air connections on the unit? And can you continue using the same duct as before?
That would really be no problem then.

Normally, ventilation systems are planned as follows:
- Determine the air exchange rate, from which the required airflow rate is calculated based on the room volume
- Define supply air zones and exhaust air zones (with the remaining areas acting as transfer zones)
- Distribute fresh air to the supply air zones.

Then follows—at least I believe/hope—quite a bit of technical detail regarding pressure losses, flow velocities, avoiding short circuits, etc.

And that completes the planning (usually, it will be found that the total supply airflow exactly matches the total exhaust airflow)!

If you now connect a supply air valve at the central unit to exhaust air, the whole concept becomes unbalanced (which Sebastian79 basically already pointed out in #2). That’s why I would recommend listing the requirements and then consulting a (competent) planner.

It is relatively easy to adjust the volume flow rates. Reducers are used to decrease the flow until the output matches the planned values everywhere. This is the same process used during standard commissioning. The shorter the hose to the outlet, the more flow you would normally get there.

However, you are of course right that simply switching connections is not possible. As I mentioned, it is probably easier to leave it as it is.