Understanding Your Home Ventilation Options

Copyright (c) 2015 Matt Reardon

All those impressive looking or sounding air quality control systems are virtually of no use if your home lacks a good ventilation system to move the air each day. No matter what you install, you will be lacking a fresh and clean flow of air so long as your ventilation remains poor.

A standard quality air filter will only remove larger particles in the air such as dust, pollen and dander. Even a good quality electronic air filter will only go further and get rid of smaller particles like gases, bacteria and mould. Nevertheless, despite all these efforts, the quality of your indoor air might remain poor so long as no fresh supply of air is constantly coming in from outdoors.

Types Of Available Ventilators

Generally, the choice of ventilations systems available is limited. Your choice of a home ventilation system will largely depend on both the quantity of air contaminants that your home has got and the amount of cooled or heated air which you are ready to lose daily through vents. In Australia, even in a room that has no ceiling fan, the Building Code of Australia (BCA) recommends that you ought to try and achieve a good level of effective cross ventilation.

- The Exhaust fan: This is the simplest ventilation method. A fan or several fans will blow out air from your home, in the process forming a negative air pressure zone within your house. Available air inlets will then let in new fresher air enter into your home and level out that pressure.

- Balanced Exhaust fans: Under this system, one fan blows your indoor air out while another fan pulls in fresh air. These are particularly vital if you are having gas burners or open flames, as it keeps the flames from getting snuffed out by the negative pressure.

These two traditional ventilation methods, while simple, are also quite inefficient. For example, in the mid of winter they will blow all of the heated air outside. In the summer, it will perform in a similar manner to the cooled air inside your home. Although, these methods will offer your home some degree of comfort, you certainly will be paying more for your energy consumption bill.

- Heat Recovery Ventilation (HRV): Because of the inefficiencies of the exhaust fans, the heat recovery ventilators are becoming very popular in most homes. Particularly if you have made the effort to have your home tightly sealed up to minimize loss of energy, these types of ventilation systems will save you lots of money.

When air gets ventilated via a recovery unit, the heat or energy gets transferred between outdoor and indoor air as it passes the unit. During the winter, the energy or heat in the indoor air gets retained while in the summer, the heat in your outdoor air gets eliminated before it makes its entry into your home.

Which Method Is Best For Me?

The technique you select will largely depend on your present cost of cooling and plus what kinds of contaminants you're facing in the home. Another contributing factor would be the kind of building you want to ventilate and the kind of activity taking place inside.

If you decide to for the mechanical ventilation system, you'll require making sure that the unit plus its installation is in compliance with Australian Standards (AS) 3666.1 and AS 1668.2 dealing with 'Mechanical Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality'. It is worth noting that the Australian Standard (AS) have been developed taking into consideration the ISO/DIS 16890 developed by the International Standards Organization.


----------------------------------------------------
Matt Reardon has been working at MouldBuster long enough to become an expert in home systems. When you come to MouldBuster, Matt will be at hand to support you. He will give you useful suggestions. You can also visit our website at http://mouldbuster.com.au/ for additional details.