Over time, the air in your home becomes laden with moisture, dust, and allergens including mould spores and pollen. Stale air can make your home uncomfortable and unhealthy, and in some parts of the country where radon levels are elevated, the air can also be dangerous to your health. Proper ventilation helps to improve your indoor air quality by increasing the amount of fresh air that is drawn into the property from outside.
As fresh air displaces the stale atmosphere in your house, it reduces the concentration of moisture in the air to reduce condensation, but also helps to ensure that you have better quality air to breathe with fewer pollutants and allergens present.
If you live in an urban area, the air quality outside your home may be poor. Despite efforts to reduce emissions from cars and trucks, city air still has a lot of pollution including particulate matter that can affect the health of residents and cause allergic reactions as well as worsening respiratory conditions such as asthma. In rural areas, while there is less manmade air pollution, higher levels of pollen from natural sources can make life miserable during the spring and summer.
Good home ventilation should improve the air quality in your home, which means ensuring that pollution and other allergens are reduced.
There are two main methods of home ventilation. In extraction system, fans are used to remove air from the building. Extraction systems, whether single room or whole house actively reduce air pressure and cause fresh air to be drawn into the building from outside. Positive Input Ventilation systems (PIV) such as ATMOS work in the opposite way. PIV draws air in from outside. This raises the internal air pressure slightly and displaces the stale existing air to replace it with fresh air from outside.
Single room extractor fans work in a single direction to blow air out of your home, and while some designs do include an air filter, this is to protect their motor and fan from dust and grease in the air of your home rather than to clean the incoming air.
Whole house mechanical extract ventilation (MEV) systems can be designed to include a heat recovery system (Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery – MVHR). MVHR systems use the warmth of the outgoing air to heat air as it enters your home. Air is drawn in from outside and passes through a filter and heat exchange system to clean and warm it and are highly efficient.
PIV systems have a central unit which is usually mounted in your loft that pulls in the air from outside and then circulates it into different rooms. Mounting the central unit higher in the building means that it is above the level where most particulate pollution and heavy gases such as Radon and Carbon Dioxide will be found. These systems then filter the incoming air to further clean it and reduce the concentration of any pollen or other allergens that might be present.
If you are struggling with the air quality in your home, or have problems with condensation, damp, or mould, improved ventilation can help. Good quality indoor air helps to improve health by removing pollution and stopping mould from becoming a problem. EnviroVent have local ventilation specialists around the country who can visit your property to conduct a free home survey to find the sources of condensation and provide advice about the best ways to improve your ventilation. Enter your postcode below to find an expert in your area.
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