Ventilation

Air quality/indoor climate:

With the heat recovery ventilation system, the whole house has a pleasant and healthy indoor climate all year round. The temperature and relative air humidity stay extremely stable throughout the year, the humidity is stays between 40-60% even in the most extreme damp and dry weeks of the year. These are ideal conditions for humans and critical for people with asthma or related conditions.

The fresh air supplied into bedrooms also leads to an improved sleep quality with a number of benefits, read more about this here. Another bonus of a good indoor climate is that bathrooms dry out immediately after baths/showers and newly washed clothes dry inside within hours or overnight.

Smells in the house from cooking or otherwise will not linger, as the air is always being exchanged. The ventilation system also filters incoming air removing pollen and dust/particulates.

Energy efficiency/noise:

Very little thermal energy is lost in the ventilation process; this is thanks to extremely efficient heat exchangers. Heat exchangers are made up of a very thin plastic or metal network of channels where cool and warm air pass by one another exchanging heat but without actually mixing. Modern machines often make use of dual heat exchangers making them up to 90% efficient.

We use metal spiral pipes for our ductwork and insulate the pipes coming to and from the machine to minimize thermal losses. These pipes have a large diameter meaning the air moves very slowly and very quietly. Mufflers are used for rooms which are close to the machine and the overall system must be designed and dimensioned so that sounds will not travel between rooms through the pipes.

Features:

Most of the machines we use have a bypass mode which will bypass the heat exchanger and bring cool air directly into the house; this can be useful for night-time cooling in warm climates but is rarely necessary in Ireland. The machines can also be set to electrically heat the incoming air if it falls below a certain level, 16°C for example. However, this function is usually disabled for our houses.

Read additional information on the models we use, price and installation costs here.