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
B
Benutzer2007 Mar 2022 10:30Tolentino schrieb:
33% humidity, if accurate, is not good or is too dry.However, this cannot be changed without moisture recovery (or other measures). Relative humidity levels around +/-40% are also common in regular homes without any mechanical ventilation or other systems during winter. This is normal – achieving 50% requires additional measures.
for a central controlled residential ventilation system + enthalpy exchanger + activated carbon filter box before the air supply distributor
This optimizes the humidity as well as possible (we are currently at around 40%) and prevents cold air or chimney smoke-laden “fresh air” from being forced into the house.
I would definitely do it this way again.
This optimizes the humidity as well as possible (we are currently at around 40%) and prevents cold air or chimney smoke-laden “fresh air” from being forced into the house.
I would definitely do it this way again.
FoxMulder24 schrieb:
My brother-in-law (timber frame house with EPS insulation, foil, mechanical ventilation without enthalpy exchanger) mentioned recently that he currently has 20-25% humidity and – no joke – he is getting cracked to slightly bloody hands. 20-25% is already extremely dry and definitely unhealthy.
An enthalpy heat exchanger costing around 800 EUR would alleviate the problem, but probably not fully solve it. In other words, even then, you likely wouldn’t reach the optimal 45-55%.
With our central mechanical ventilation without the exchanger, we currently average about 35-40% humidity. In some rooms, even just 32%. Certainly not ideal, but in winter this is almost "normal," also independently of mechanical ventilation.
In our house, the mechanical ventilation is one of the most appreciated features of the new build. We were really looking forward to it beforehand and love it in everyday life 🙂
So for us, the rule is "never without it again."
By the way, ours usually runs at a medium setting and apart from a single vent (which I need to adjust soon) is NOT audible. Especially in the bedrooms, mechanical ventilation is a great advantage and provides constantly fresh/clean air without being noticeable! And I also claim that the argument about “open doors” does not really apply here, since most people probably close their bedroom doors at night!?
W
WilderSueden7 Mar 2022 12:48Dry air does not come from the ventilation system itself but from the act of ventilating. I would recommend everyone to experiment with a suitable calculator. Air at 0°C (32°F) with 100% humidity drops to 28% when heated to 20°C (68°F). In reality, it is usually even more extreme, since outdoor humidity rarely reaches 100%.
Without ventilation, you just don’t notice it as much because you ventilate far too infrequently 😉
Without ventilation, you just don’t notice it as much because you ventilate far too infrequently 😉
WilderSueden schrieb:
Without ventilation, you just don’t notice it as much, since people rarely ventilate properly 😉That may be true and probably correct, but at the same time, mechanical ventilation actually "worsens" the problem of dry air in winter 🙂
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