Increasingly our customers are seeking ways to reduce their energy consumption with the increasing rise of electricity prices. One customer said that they’d woken up one morning with snow on his bed as he’d left the trickle vent open last snowy winter. Most houses have trickle vents on their windows or big brick vents and unfortunately you need them to get through building regulations but without the snow bit. Over a year these vents lose a huge amount of energy, so increasingly we install an MVHR or Mechanical Heat and Ventilation Recovery Unit instead . Well they are really quite easy to install especially if you are refurbishing the house and the internal air benefits are amazing. In short, a few pipes with a box tricks will filter, scrub and retain the heated air and give each room a little bit of fresh air so no need to open the window. In the long term these machines annually save between £300 to £1500 on average family house, making the pay back after 3 / 4 years. They make a lot of long term sense.

Some of our customers worry that the duct work and boxing will impact on the ceilings levels, but if the boxing is carefully planned they can always be tucked against the walls and covered by a cornices or you can make interesting lighting features near them. In big houses, say 5/6 bedrooms you might need one machine per floor to maintain fresh air balance, 1 machine per 1000sqft keeps the pipe work reduced and means the machine can run quieter. Some units come with a boost, so when you’re are cooking, or in the bathroom, the ventilation speeds up, dragging away the background moisture, and recycling the heat, ultimately the house begins to have that hotel bedroom fresh air feel. The best thing for me about these MVHR units is that i don’t have that small rattling bathroom fans in the corner anymore chucking £20 notes into the garden every day all winter. I have sealed air tight house, it’s an efficient modern home [1905 upgraded in 2007]. My little MVHR ‘vent box’ saves me money, it’s sounds quiet, and does not make me cold!

Here are some useful links:

http://www.homebuilding.co.uk/feature/ventilation-your-options-explained

http://www.ornl.gov/sci/roofs+walls/insulation/fact%20sheets/whole%20house%20ventilation%20systems.pdf

http://www.vent-axia.de/range/clone-sentinel-kinetic.html

http://www.dealec.co.uk/acatalog/vent_axia_lo-carbon_sentinel_kinetic_plus_online.html

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 5th, 2011 at 2:57 pm and is filed under Stage B - Technical & Pricing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.