New House - Vents

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Does anyone have any idea of the ballpark install cost you'd be looking at for a heat exchanger system such as that offered by www.allvent.com? I presume that the overall cost would depend on how easy/difficult it would be to run the pipework in any particular house, but even if you went just for a single top floor room directly accessible from the attic would you likely be looking at over or under 5,000euro for example?
 
I was given a guidance figure of €2 per square foot for a fully installed system from Proair. They mentioned that they'd need more information to give a more precise quote, such as size, type, new build/existing, etc.
Leo
 
While you are at it do a test for radon gas in your house. Adequate ventilation can keep its level low as a last line of defense.
 
Leo said:
I was given a guidance figure of €2 per square foot for a fully installed system from Proair. They mentioned that they'd need more information to give a more precise quote, such as size, type, new build/existing, etc.
Leo
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Thanks Leo. That sounds like better value than I had expected.

We have not been in any great rush to move away from the vents in our rooms (mainly because we weren't aware of feasible alternatives and, as it turns out, we had underestimated the amount of heat lost via the vents) , but we have noticed surprisingly significant benefits, in terms of the heat retained in the house, since we slid closed some of the plastic vent covers in the last couple of weeks. If the marketing blurb is to be believed, the heat exchanger system addresses the two issues, of proper ventilation and heat retention, very neatly and very well. It certainly encourages me enough to explore it further.
 
I've got electric extractor fans in the utility,wc,bathroom and ensuite with fixed louvres on the external wall and the fan itself. Result: Cold air flowing freely through. I have made enquiries and apparently extractor fans with an electronically closable vent are available (when on in opens and when off it closes) but they are €50 each. Are they worth it?

I also have a fixed open vent for a wood burning stove which has a manual open/close internal cover but even when closed this is a major source of draughts.
 

heinbloed, i'm afraid you are misleading people in many parts of your post.
firstly the regulations of 1991 have been superceded and therefore are not applicable to any change you make in 2006.
secondly, ventilation is not a quick way out for builders, in fact, it takes them longer to stop blocklaying to accommodate holes, windows, vents, etc. VENTILATION IS REQUIRED for many reasons, Carbon monoxide being one of them. It also stops radon building up in the home (radon barriers can fail!). It also helps with condensation problems because of modern day double and triple glazing and the fact that houses are now very warm compared to 10, 20, 30 years ago. I own a timber frame house and sometimes we don't have to turn on the heat. Timber frame houses DO have ventilation holes in the walls. Ventilation is also just common sense to stop musty smells and stale air building up in your house.

to the original poster: i am a structural engineer so i know what i'm talking about and i would urge you not to block or seal the vents. Carpenter is correct in his advice. you will be putting yourself and your family at risk if you do seal them as modern houses are built with materials will not let air in where it's not designed to come in. if it is really bothering you, the best thing you can do is to move the vents to high level (if they are not up there). are the vents near windows? if so, heavy curtains would prevent the breeze across the room but also allow fresh air to trickle in. you may also be able to install trickle vents in your windows. you say there are no trees around your house - could you put up a temporary fence while the trees are being planted?
 
Actually looking at the retrofit of vents on old house..

Like many others I find the regualar vents quite disturbing and often creating too much ventilation.

My plan is to install vent cover on the ceiling and have 4inch flexi pipe going out to the soffit.. Hopefully this will help.. Any comments ?
 
I don't think your solution will work- unless you add a mechanical fan. The regular ducting is ribbed and this increases the internal surface area and the friction of the duct. This coupled with the potential length of a duct will not produce any significant ventilation. A standard wall vent will be sleeved with a circular smooth pipe and it's maximum length will only be about 300mm.
 
Was actually thinking of putting vent on ceiling say in bedroom close to wall say 2-3 inches from corner of wall using 90 degree wavin bend 8 to 12 inch wavin and 90 degree bend again to turn it down onto soffit...

Do you not think this will work ?? I was hoping by doing this that I would still have ventilation and avoid the noise of wall vent
 

An inverted U? That's a lot of obstructions for air to go around. Also a vent in the ceiling like that might attract dust around the ceiling area where it's fitted. Just my opinion, I'd be very interested to hear any others. I'd imagine for a "passive stack" to be effective that the stack should be as straight as possible, no?
 
To OCD : only technically outdated houses have holes in the wall. Any permanent opening causes discomfort and exaggerates fuel bills. As a engineer you should be able to give us a figure how fast ( km/h) the wind has to blow through the perma vent to achieve the desired ventilation.Lets say for the average sized livingroom/bedroom. As well you should be able to figure out for us (and for the builders) how much it costs ( in kw/h ) to have these holes. And what it costs to get a proper ventilation system instead, with heat recovery. Heat recovery is necessary to get rid of the house when the new energy passport comes (2007) and the new would- be -owner feels incompetent to use rapid ventilation. Namely the doors and windows.
No house with permavents would survive a blower door test.
And radon as well as CO can be detected, measured and protected against.
One doesn't wear a life vest in Amsterdam just in case the barriers break, nor do we wear gas masks in the metro just in case.....
Make sure your house is up to date !
Timber frame houses had been build in the past to bad standards because neither the engineers nor the buyers were aware of the technical advantages available to such a structure. Or to buildings in general.
Saying it is necessarry to have holes in the walls expresses ignorance of the issue. How would Irelands largest building ( County council hall in Cork,13 storeys) be ventilated? Sure the papers would be blown from the desks at that height/windspeed ? How would a cabin on a ship/ferryboat be ventilated? A house with the comfort level of a caravan/sweatbox is in need of renovation . But saying that all new buildings should be made according to the old standards is protectionism of those who did put their money into the wrong property.Was that your intention?
 

i feel you are making very vague points to try to illustrate your own views but you are ignornant to many facts. firstly, i never stated i was a building services engineer, i am a chartered structural engineer and therefore have achieved a standard which entitles me to give my professional view. if you can tell me what your experience is it may help your argument. secondly, offices/ships and whatever else you concocted do not need to be insulated and protected in the same way as houses do. yes there are measurements and detectors for radon, CO etc but most people do not have these nor use them on a daily basis. "holes in walls" are techinically what they are but they are a little more sophisticated that just that. people do not sleep in offices and therefore are not exposed to constant levels of CO and radon that they may be in their house. thirdly, the most important point you are missing is that is that ventilation in a house is good building practice, for instance, you may test your radon and CO levels in year 1 and assume the the levels are fine in year 3....in year 2 your house may have settled, cracked the radon membrane and built up dangerous levels of radon in the ground floor...having proper ventilation will negate this problem.

i am neither pro or against timber frame, in fact i have designed houses, offices and every other building imaginable in all types of material. they all have the good and bad. you are making it out that "holes in walls" are unnecessary and that they are a quick way out for builders. yes, there are other ways to vent a house but they are costly and will eventually be passed on to the selling price.

please, get your facts straight, state where your experience comes from and don't throw out things just because you think they are true. they may have happened to you but i have seen more houses in my career than you will see in your lifetime so i feel i am a little more qualified to speak about this than you. i mean no disrespect but i have seen a lot of misinformation on these boards and i would hate to see someone fall ill after blocking up ventilation to their house because of various posts telling them "what's best".
 
Please, again, figure out for us what it costs in kwh/year to have these holes in the walls replacing a proper ventilation. If you can't come up with this number than you should not compare the cost of a proper ventilation regime, you have to compare like with like, money with money. "Ask about money" is the name of this forum after all.
Facts please!
Btw: Ships need a very good ventilation since steel decks at/below water level with steel hulls have nearly no insulation/k-value at all. Neither sound nor temperature insulation is available in a pure steel hull, so all cabins are fitted with non-breathable insulation . And fully ventilated. For cheap.
O.k. , some passangers died in the 80s because of bad ventilation, but that was
-alas- on Irish ferrys, fully inspected and passed by structural engineers.....(smiley).
 
some passangers died in the 80s because of bad ventilation, but that was
-alas- on Irish ferrys, fully inspected and passed by structural engineers.....(smiley).
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you have just proven my point and misled readers again.
bad ventilation kills - would you prefer to save a few cent for the sake of ventilation. i wouldn't and therefore your post is ill-informed.
insulation is neither inspected nor passed by structural engineers.

again, i would ask for your qualifications and your reasoning behind blocking up vents. yes this is a money forum but i do not think money should come before a life. my initial reason (and still the reason I question you) is that you are telling someone to contravene good building practice and at the same time put lives at risk and as an representative of sound engineering views i do not condone this.

yes, there are other ways to vent a house and you will have to get a building services engineer to compare costs but believe it or not, these vent holes are a pain for the builder to put in and are not the easy way around things. i think your reasoning against the trade is deeper than you are letting on. maybe you've been burned by a contractor, i don't know, but please do not put people's lives at risk because of your views.
 
heinbloed said:
If you install a proper boiler-one that has it's own independent air supply- and if you close the fire places for good than you won't need air vents.
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You should be very careful when giving advice of this nature. As a fellow building professional, I would reiterate OCD's points when it comes to ventilation. Ventilation is a Building Regulation requirement and its specific requirements are set out in the Technical Guidance Documents that accompany the Regulations. It is the current regulatory framework that controls and regulates building in Ireland as is based upon a wealth of experience both here is the UK, backed up with years of research from respected bodies like the British Research Establishment and the British Standards. Eliminating ventilation would be fool hardy, even negligent. Where a boiler is involved, it could even prove fatal. Boilers by their nature draw oxygen and combust this with a fuel source (oil / gas etc), this produces carbon monoxide which, if inhaled, can prove fatal in sufficient quantities. As this gas is also colourless and odourless, you will not even know if you’re inhaling this. If you’re asleep, you will definitely not know and the consequences are often tragic. All boilers should be situated in an adequately uninhabited & ventilated room (i.e. garage, utility room). For piece of mind, it may be prudent to install a carbon monoxide detector – this is a similar device to a smoke alarm and wil lalarm when CO reaches dangerous levels. This also applies to rooms where a 'heat producing appliance' (fireplace) is installed, this can be a gas or solid fuel fire. Some modern gas fires being installed in apartments and duplexes have no chimney, they are therefore self venting and rely on air supply from external wall vents. These, unlike bedroom vents, are permanently left open and cannot be closed.

If one wants to undertake the calculations to assess a ‘KW / hr / year’ value, they are set down in Part L of the TGD’s. Both appendix D & E give worked examples how one could work out the energy rating of a dwelling taking into account the various technical merits of the building fabric, U-values, including ventilation. If you're after a kW / h / year figure, Appendix E will give you such data.

However, the first posts on this thread related to wall vents, their requirements and potential downfalls (noise / draughts). A few simple pointers:

· If wall vents are installed, never block them, particularly ones in a living room where a gas fire is installed. Duncan Stewart regularly reminds us of this on RTE. He’s doing this for a reason.

· Vents were required to be fitted to houses after 1992, this was when the current building regulations came into effect. Some houses built prior to this would have wall vents fitted, this would have been based upon requirements and good practice observed in the UK. Vents can easily be retro fitted as Carpenter has pointed out. vents also come in wall / trickle vents.

· The issues high lighted (noise, draughts and heating) can be resolved easily by installing acoustically treated vents (in the case of noise), these are more expensive than the standard (and probably cheapest) ones installed by contractors, particularly where a mass build development is underway. Draughts can be minimised by fitting closable vents in rooms where no gas fires / boilers are fitted. I don’t have any info on these, but an internet search should source these.

· The ‘trickle vents’ above windows commonly seen in new developments satisfy the requirements for ventilating habitable rooms (typically 1/20th of the room area), they are in my opinion a better solution as they are generally quieter than the walls vents.

· In Ireland, we have a very damp climate with high levels of RH All year round. This is one reason why ventilation is installed, as well as generally improving the air within a room. Some counties also suffer excess radon – the treatment of radon is also compulsory under the current building regulations. If in doubt, you can have a survey done by contacting www.rpii.ie. They will send out a small sensor that can be installed in a room and sent back after a few weeks for analysis of radon quantities. It is a known fact that Radon build up can be minimised by adequate ventilation.

I think the comment on the ferry deaths is inappropriate and insensitive to this discussion. I am not a marine engineer, therefore cannot comment on the requirements for shipping vessels.
 
I give it up, I can show you the water but I can't teach you how to drink it. Airtight buildings are beeing build around the globe since decades. Condensing boiler for ecxample need no airsuply from the room, they can't emit CO2 to the room. British and Irish building regulations are set for grandad's house , not for modern buildings. Concerning the holes in the wall. No sane engeneer builds open fires into houses that should pass an enery rating. And it's the open fire-one that doesn't get the oxigene from outside but from the room- that causes CO emissions , nothing else.
We have to figure out the costs to the owner and to the world to eliminate these bad building practices. So my question still hasn't been answered : What do these holes in the walls cost?
The origal poster of this thread was in danger to catch a cold or worse because of holes in the wall, don't forget that.
 
Heinbloed,

I'm going to have to agree to disagree with your airtight building theory, and omission of ventilation, it sounds like your amateur interest is not backed up with any professional rationale or training in the field of engineering or construction, especially when I see statements such as ..'British and Irish building regulations are set for grandad's house , not for modern buildings'. It is unlikely the building regulations are going to be re-written to suit your thoughts, these are currently enabled by statute to govern and control building development in Ireland. However if you feel so strongly, Dick Roche (http://www.dickroche.com/) is the current Minister for the Environment. His department will take submissions, you'd never know they might see the err in their ways and re-write the next edition of the regulations based on your knowledge.

I can see merit in some of your posts, green building is the way forward and it's in all our mutual interests to ensure reductions in heating and associated CO2 & adherence to EU directives & to treaties such as Kyoto. This will make the planet a cleaner place for us all to live in and pass on to future generations. The energy directive currently in the Dáil in the form of the Bulding Control Bill 2005 should help implement tighter controls and implementation of current European directives. The impact will become evident when it applies to new housing in 2007.

Anyone still with me, Vent Axia do acoustically treated and thermostatically controlled wall vents, details can be found at [broken link removed]
 
Dunno here. Seems that I have never seen (anyone else?) 'holes-through-walls' in any other northern Europe nations, excepting our idol for mimicry, the UK.

And this will see off the 'protectors of Ireland against CO' in short order.
 
Maybe those who are insisting on holes in the walls , thinking these are a must, thinking that these holes are a legal requirement have not had the chance to get over the 2. level of literacy?
The third level of literacy demands understanding of a complex text.
To show what I mean in our context here I use the sample of the "Technical Guidance Document F , Ventilation"
I start, to stay basic and simple , with the first chapter, containing the first three sentences of the refered text:
"This document has been published by the Minister for the Environment and Social Gouvernment under the article 7 of the Building Regulations 1997. It provides guidance in relation to part F of the Second Schedule to the Regulations (Amendment)(No2) Regulations 2002.The document should be read in conjunction with the Building regulations ,1997 and other documents published under these Regulations."
Here we are. Those oposing the true and valid statement of mine -namely that holes in the wall are no legal requirement- simply do not under stand the second sentence (see above) where it says :"....provides guidance...".
Do we have to explain to our engeneers what a guidance is ? Do we have to explain to our builders, solicitors, to our academics what the legal binding effect of a " guidance" is?
That would be very complicated and time consuming, I'm not an english teacher nor a social worker provided with the means to train literates category 2 to understand a simple textbook made for literates category 3, so let me try this simple picturesque sample:
Imagine you are travelling on a road and come to a signpost that says "Dublin,10km". What does it mean ? That you have to travel 10 km ? To Dublin ?
This signpost would be a guidance. Not an order. Nor a demand. Just a guidance in the original meaning of the word.
You are not legally required to take this road to get to Dublin. In fact you are not required to travel to Dublin at all when spotting this signpost. When planning to travel to Dublin you can take any legal route.
No matter how long or short. As long as you get there you'll be in Dublin.
I hope that clears a bit the situation concerning the "Technical Guidance Document F Ventilation "
Check also Carpenter's post in this thread.
Technical Guidance Ducuments are not legally binding. Only the Building Regulations are.
My point -that there is no need for holes in the walls for adequate ventilation- is right, based on facts.
 
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