Ventilation with heat recovery Traditionally, keeping a house fresh wasn't difficult - the wind blew in through holes and gaps. Nowadays, as we make ever greater efforts to keep the heat in our houses, accidental ventilation and opening the windows in winter doesn't make sense, because controlled ventilation is easy to achieve.A mechanical ventilation system sucks air into the house and blows it through ducts into the places it's needed, generally bedrooms and living rooms. The same system extracts air from the kitchen and bathrooms and blows it out of the house. By passing the fresh stream over the extracted stream in a heat exchanger, most of the heat from the stale air can be transferred into the incoming air. This means that the incoming air is warmed, but fresh, and is normally filtered to reduce dust and pollen levels. Keeping the heat in a building by insulation and ventilation obviously reduces the heat demand. It can mean that you won't turn on the heating at all for more of the year. If you have problems with condensation in the house, a ventilation system might well be part of the answer. Ductwork needs space, so it needs to be planned into a new building. Although it's not normally so simple to fit ducts into an existing house, it can be done. Give us a call or drop us a line if you would like an estimate for a system. |