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
Exactly, it must be taken into account in the floor structure. With round ducts, even more space is required. If a suspended ceiling is already planned, the pipes can, of course, be installed there. In any case, it must be considered within the clear room height of the shell construction.
One remark: if you want to include it in the floor structure, the insulation involves quite a bit of detailed work. If you do it yourself, it requires a lot of effort, especially if you want to do it properly (not just leaving cavities next to the pipes or filling them with offcuts; you need to use bonded loose fill insulation!). The absurd thing is that professional contractors often probably do not carry it out 100% correctly but rather quickly place an insulation board over a cavity.
For the next house, I will probably prefer to embed it in the ceiling cavity instead.
One remark: if you want to include it in the floor structure, the insulation involves quite a bit of detailed work. If you do it yourself, it requires a lot of effort, especially if you want to do it properly (not just leaving cavities next to the pipes or filling them with offcuts; you need to use bonded loose fill insulation!). The absurd thing is that professional contractors often probably do not carry it out 100% correctly but rather quickly place an insulation board over a cavity.
For the next house, I will probably prefer to embed it in the ceiling cavity instead.
Tolentino schrieb:
A quick note, if I may. When considering insulation within the floor construction, it involves quite a bit of precise cutting. If you do it yourself, it requires a lot of effort, especially if you want to do it properly (not just leaving gaps next to the pipes or filling them with offcuts; a bonded loose fill must be used!). Thank you for the remark. I hadn’t really thought about that before and honestly don’t know exactly how the specialist department handled it in our case. Still, what exactly is the purpose of the described fill material? Sound insulation?
Firstly, moisture should not be allowed to accumulate in any cavity, as this would create enough time (and quantity) for actual damage to occur. Additionally, there is the issue of uneven load distribution. In theory, this could cause edge breakage in the adjacent insulation or place too much load on the ventilation duct. In the worst case, a section of the screed might settle.
This is probably very unlikely, but as is well known, here in Germany we tend to ensure everything is double or triple safe.
Also, on the concrete slab or above an uninsulated basement, you have a thermal bridge, and I would not install any ventilation there.
This is probably very unlikely, but as is well known, here in Germany we tend to ensure everything is double or triple safe.
Also, on the concrete slab or above an uninsulated basement, you have a thermal bridge, and I would not install any ventilation there.
Tolentino schrieb:
...On the slab or on an uninsulated basement, you also have a thermal bridge, but I wouldn’t install any ventilation there anyway.We installed 75mm (3 inch) round ventilation ducts with a 4cm (1.5 inch) layer of polystyrene insulation underneath (so almost directly) on the ground floor slab. No one saw any issues with this. We even had to install ventilation ducts within the (thickly insulated) facade. No problems so far.Hello, between the pipe and the floor covering there is approximately 8cm (3 inches) of expanded polystyrene or about 13cm (5 inches) of mineral wool insulation with a density of 032. We have a very efficient controlled residential ventilation system with heat recovery, and so far I haven’t noticed any difference in air temperature at the vents (although I haven’t measured it).
Off-topic: If I ever have a lot of free time again, I might do that, but at the moment I am involved in long-term work projects like never before, as if IT will disappear tomorrow :p. Also, on a personal level, I soon need to focus on the outdoor areas including the bike shelter, wooden deck, outdoor sauna, and expanding the utility room—not to forget...
Off-topic: If I ever have a lot of free time again, I might do that, but at the moment I am involved in long-term work projects like never before, as if IT will disappear tomorrow :p. Also, on a personal level, I soon need to focus on the outdoor areas including the bike shelter, wooden deck, outdoor sauna, and expanding the utility room—not to forget...
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