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
Depending on the system, these do not fit into a dishwasher. However, using a dishwasher is not recommended.
Blowing out with compressed air and using an industrial vacuum cleaner works quite well. There are also filters from third-party manufacturers that are usually significantly cheaper.
Blowing out with compressed air and using an industrial vacuum cleaner works quite well. There are also filters from third-party manufacturers that are usually significantly cheaper.
With my manufacturer, the recommendation is to vacuum twice and then replace the filter (the device indicates a filter change every 3 months). However, this is simply a replaceable filter fleece. You can of course buy it from the manufacturer or get it as a roll and cut it yourself.
Whether or not to have ventilation is not a consideration for me after one year.
For me, it’s not relaxing to walk up and down three times daily over two floors plus the basement, then open everything up and close it all again 15 minutes later.
Additionally, there’s the routine after every shower. But that’s just my experience. Others might find it relaxing.
By the way, you can also just use the search function; these questions are discussed here every few months. 😎
Whether or not to have ventilation is not a consideration for me after one year.
For me, it’s not relaxing to walk up and down three times daily over two floors plus the basement, then open everything up and close it all again 15 minutes later.
Additionally, there’s the routine after every shower. But that’s just my experience. Others might find it relaxing.
By the way, you can also just use the search function; these questions are discussed here every few months. 😎
G
Gerddieter6 Mar 2022 20:08A technical question:
Does it make sense to install a mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery only for the living areas, kitchen, bathroom, and basement, but exclude the bedrooms/children’s rooms? It might bother me at night. Or is it possible to switch it off in individual rooms at night?
Gerddieter
Does it make sense to install a mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery only for the living areas, kitchen, bathroom, and basement, but exclude the bedrooms/children’s rooms? It might bother me at night. Or is it possible to switch it off in individual rooms at night?
Gerddieter
Absolutely not. Air quality is especially important in the bedroom and can deteriorate very quickly. Turning it off is also counterproductive. A well-designed controlled residential ventilation system is nearly inaudible on a low setting. Therefore, plan for a higher airflow rate in bedrooms.
SebbSebb schrieb:
It really seems that those who have a ventilation system truly appreciate it. The others either belong to the group that prefers natural ventilation or simply don’t know any different. 😀
I always compare controlled residential ventilation to my Vorwerk cooking machine: "Those who don’t know it usually dislike it!"
I no longer want to do without either.
And please, no off-topic discussions like "I can cook myself..."
I can also ventilate, but I still have a convenient helper for it. ;-)
We live in a renovated old apartment building, where plastic windows were installed later, along with a single ventilation unit in the bedroom. So, ventilation is really important for us, and we even received a ventilation manual when signing the rental agreement.
At first, the ventilation unit ran on level 1 as described in the manual, and it annoyed us a lot. Now it runs permanently on level 2, and we hardly notice it anymore. The unit is definitely louder than a mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery.
We also love to wide open all the windows on days like last week to let spring air into the house. Especially while working from home, ventilating three times a day works excellently. But in everyday life, it usually goes like this: in the morning no one ventilates because everyone rushes out, at midday no one is at home, and in the evening no one feels like opening the windows because of the cold air coming in. That’s why we wish for a mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery for our project. We have many friends and relatives with such systems in new buildings, and they all love them. Also, because it reduces dust.
At first, the ventilation unit ran on level 1 as described in the manual, and it annoyed us a lot. Now it runs permanently on level 2, and we hardly notice it anymore. The unit is definitely louder than a mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery.
We also love to wide open all the windows on days like last week to let spring air into the house. Especially while working from home, ventilating three times a day works excellently. But in everyday life, it usually goes like this: in the morning no one ventilates because everyone rushes out, at midday no one is at home, and in the evening no one feels like opening the windows because of the cold air coming in. That’s why we wish for a mechanical ventilation system with heat recovery for our project. We have many friends and relatives with such systems in new buildings, and they all love them. Also, because it reduces dust.
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