Just wondered if any of you have had any dealings with heat recovery in older properties.
I live in a bungalow of which the original part is over 100 years old, which has been extended many times since. I have a mixture of stone walls, brick walls without cavity, and in the more modern end cavity walls with insulation. As you can guess its not going to be air tight, I've got things like a disused chimney which needs to breathe, etc.
I get some problems with condensation, not massive ones, normally around the windows, this is probably due to opening the windows a bit even in winter(othersie this would be worse). Obviously this lets some of the heat out.
I was initially looking at possitive input ventilation, however looking at the costs of this, rather than having a fan forcing cold outside air into my hallway. The cheaper heat recovery units are not much more, however general wisdom is that they are not suitable for non - air tight places, as when you are sucking stale wet air out of bathrooms and kitchens, cold outside air gets drawn back into these rooms through the gaps in the structure, reducing the energy saving the unit gives. I can understand the logic of that. However, while there is no way it will acheive the green savings it does in a modern property, surley blowing in air pre-heated with recovered heat and also accepting that there is ggoing to be some unheated air also drawn in, is going to be better than purposly blowing in outside air and then sucking air out with standard extract fans in the bathrooms (as would be the case with PIV). Or as I am doing now, m,aking sure windows get opened on a regular basis to make sure air gets circulated?
Anyone have any experience of this? What am I missing... is there any reason I shouldn't go with heat recovery inside of possible presure ventilation to achieve air changes?
I live in a bungalow of which the original part is over 100 years old, which has been extended many times since. I have a mixture of stone walls, brick walls without cavity, and in the more modern end cavity walls with insulation. As you can guess its not going to be air tight, I've got things like a disused chimney which needs to breathe, etc.
I get some problems with condensation, not massive ones, normally around the windows, this is probably due to opening the windows a bit even in winter(othersie this would be worse). Obviously this lets some of the heat out.
I was initially looking at possitive input ventilation, however looking at the costs of this, rather than having a fan forcing cold outside air into my hallway. The cheaper heat recovery units are not much more, however general wisdom is that they are not suitable for non - air tight places, as when you are sucking stale wet air out of bathrooms and kitchens, cold outside air gets drawn back into these rooms through the gaps in the structure, reducing the energy saving the unit gives. I can understand the logic of that. However, while there is no way it will acheive the green savings it does in a modern property, surley blowing in air pre-heated with recovered heat and also accepting that there is ggoing to be some unheated air also drawn in, is going to be better than purposly blowing in outside air and then sucking air out with standard extract fans in the bathrooms (as would be the case with PIV). Or as I am doing now, m,aking sure windows get opened on a regular basis to make sure air gets circulated?
Anyone have any experience of this? What am I missing... is there any reason I shouldn't go with heat recovery inside of possible presure ventilation to achieve air changes?
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