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
KingJulien5 Mar 2022 16:36SebbSebb schrieb:
And whether the moisture and CO2 produced are already well distributed across 160 sqm (approximately 1700 sq ft) of living space. Do you have doors inside the house?
I bought a CO2 meter to see how much I can reduce ventilation in winter without the air quality getting too poor.
With the door closed and reduced ventilation (even below the minimum), the CO2 level reaches the 1000 ppm limit within 1 to 2 hours.
SebbSebb schrieb:
Is the indoor air comfortable or maybe too dry due to low humidity? You have to decide between musty, stale, and moist air in winter or fresh but dry air.
This can be counteracted with an enthalpy heat exchanger and by generating humidity.
SebbSebb schrieb:
To be honest, we already find cross-ventilating once a day annoying in daily life. That makes you ideal candidates for a controlled mechanical ventilation system!
It’s not just about mold.
There’s the effort of manual ventilation, CO2, other pollutants that off-gas from various sources, pollen, noise...
And you can still open windows with controlled ventilation. You just don’t have to 😉
M
motorradsilke5 Mar 2022 16:44We don’t have a ventilation system and don’t miss it. In the morning, I go through the house once, open the roller shutters, and air it out. Then again during the day and in the evening, when in some rooms the roller shutters are closed again right away.
Overall, it’s very little effort. After nearly 5 months in the house, the humidity is around 50%. There is no musty smell. However, in our case, the interior doors are almost never closed. Whenever the weather allows, the windows stay open to hear the birds, enjoy the fresh air, and experience the openness.
Overall, it’s very little effort. After nearly 5 months in the house, the humidity is around 50%. There is no musty smell. However, in our case, the interior doors are almost never closed. Whenever the weather allows, the windows stay open to hear the birds, enjoy the fresh air, and experience the openness.
P
Pinkiponk5 Mar 2022 18:21SebbSebb schrieb:
...We are building a prefabricated timber frame house without a ventilation system or air conditioning. Initially, I would have preferred windows with trickle vents, like we had in our previous older house, but our house manufacturer does not install those. After some thought, I actually think that’s fine because I remember that those trickle vents were a nuisance when cleaning the windows and never really got properly clean.If you find opening the windows in your home inconvenient, then you have no choice but to install a ventilation system.
My husband and I like to walk up to a window, look outside, open it, smell the air, and, as Motorradsilke already mentioned, hear the sounds. Also, like in our old house, we will always leave all the doors open because we appreciate that sense of openness. If we find that ventilating the new house becomes annoying or uncomfortable, we will retrofit some or all windows with trickle vents. I haven’t looked into the details yet, but it seems they can be clipped in. There are various videos about this online.
And, pssst, this is really a secret now, ;-) because some might scold me for this. ;-) I am thinking, if necessary, about simply removing a small piece of insulating rubber from the window frame or poking some holes in it. I am not even allowed to tell my husband this, and I probably won’t do it. ;-)
But, as mentioned above, if you don’t like to ventilate by opening windows, the only option is a ventilation system. My direct experience is only with offices and public spaces, and I don’t find those systems appealing nor do I appreciate the air quality in those rooms.
Dear Hampshire, YPG, and Pagoni2020, please come back. You are really needed and missed here.
Never without it again!
The air is always fresh. There is less dust in the house, and it is also very beneficial for allergy sufferers since a pollen filter can be installed.
Thanks to heat recovery, a controlled ventilation system balances out energy use while providing significant comfort improvements.
Anyone without a ventilation system who thinks their indoor air quality is good should try placing a measuring device with a display.
Then they will see that this is often not the case.
Beyond the effort involved: seriously, walking through the house every morning to raise all the roller shutters?
By that time, I have already had my coffee. The same routine in the evening in reverse. A new build without electric roller shutters. Can you believe that still exists?
The air is always fresh. There is less dust in the house, and it is also very beneficial for allergy sufferers since a pollen filter can be installed.
Thanks to heat recovery, a controlled ventilation system balances out energy use while providing significant comfort improvements.
Anyone without a ventilation system who thinks their indoor air quality is good should try placing a measuring device with a display.
Then they will see that this is often not the case.
Beyond the effort involved: seriously, walking through the house every morning to raise all the roller shutters?
By that time, I have already had my coffee. The same routine in the evening in reverse. A new build without electric roller shutters. Can you believe that still exists?
Hello, until now I have never lived in a privately owned home with a mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery. Since September 2021, I have been living in my passive house (very airtight) equipped with a central mechanical ventilation system by Maico. Before that, I lived for 3 years in a newly built solid construction apartment (masonry): for about 2.5 years of those 3 years, it felt damp, musty, and just unpleasant! I couldn’t ventilate more because I am usually away from home for more than 10 hours a day, and in the evening, ventilating by opening windows briefly in winter is no fun with a slow-responding underfloor heating system. My old house was so leaky that I didn’t have to open windows to ventilate (soon ...). Energetically, of course, a disaster.
The air quality in the new house (without an enthalpy exchanger) always feels good. I currently monitor temperature and humidity with a simple device, and the humidity levels are between 40–55% (despite this, we are considering retrofitting an enthalpy exchanger, which is possible with this system).
Due to a configuration error 2 days ago (I was experimenting a bit with the Air@Home app and forgot to save the settings), the system was turned off, and the next day (yesterday) I wondered why the air quality was poor. We had already ordered filters because the old ones were dirty and thought that was the reason. Today I replaced the filters and realized the system was not running. I turned it on, and now everything is back to how it should be. Definitely never again without mechanical ventilation with heat recovery. It’s like heated seats, adaptive cruise control, or keyless entry. Once you have experienced this comfort, you never want to go without it (of course, as always, there are exceptions to the rule).
The air quality in the new house (without an enthalpy exchanger) always feels good. I currently monitor temperature and humidity with a simple device, and the humidity levels are between 40–55% (despite this, we are considering retrofitting an enthalpy exchanger, which is possible with this system).
Due to a configuration error 2 days ago (I was experimenting a bit with the Air@Home app and forgot to save the settings), the system was turned off, and the next day (yesterday) I wondered why the air quality was poor. We had already ordered filters because the old ones were dirty and thought that was the reason. Today I replaced the filters and realized the system was not running. I turned it on, and now everything is back to how it should be. Definitely never again without mechanical ventilation with heat recovery. It’s like heated seats, adaptive cruise control, or keyless entry. Once you have experienced this comfort, you never want to go without it (of course, as always, there are exceptions to the rule).
Similar topics