Dehumidifiers

[MikeG]

...... I've even read of new houses with electrically operated ventillation to counteract the too-sealed-upness of the windows. WTAF is the sense of that ?

It's absolutely brilliant, and there is every sense in it. Instead of having cold air coming in and warm air leaking out, you have incoming fresh air warmed by the heat from the outgoing stale air. Fresh air doesn't need to equal cold air.

If I offered you a house which costs less than £100 a year to keep warm, had a constant turn-over of fresh air yet had no draughts, and never had any condensation, mould or smells, would you really turn that down for a house with draughty windows?

 

[MikeG]

There is no sense , its a backlash from the European legislation to make new buildings and houses more efficient without thinking about older properties ........

See my answer above. My house is 300 years old. Hard frost overnight.......the temperature inside this morning is 19.5, as it has been all night, and the heating was last on for an hour 3 days ago.

 

[Profpointy]

It's absolutely brilliant, and there is every sense in it. Instead of having cold air coming in and warm air leaking out, you have incoming fresh air warmed by the heat from the outgoing stale air. Fresh air doesn't need to equal cold air.

If I offered you a house which costs less than £100 a year to keep warm, had a constant turn-over of fresh air yet had no draughts, and never had any condensation, mould or smells, would you really turn that down for a house with draughty windows?

Do these systems really do that ? Seems a hell of a lot of complexity, which can doubtless be badly implemented and likely give trouble. Fair enough good insullation, and none of us want to spend money heating the garden, but electric fans to stop the house getting fousty - does this really stack up ? Is it really green ?

 

[winjim]

It's absolutely brilliant, and there is every sense in it. Instead of having cold air coming in and warm air leaking out, you have incoming fresh air warmed by the heat from the outgoing stale air. Fresh air doesn't need to equal cold air.

If I offered you a house which costs less than £100 a year to keep warm, had a constant turn-over of fresh air yet had no draughts, and never had any condensation, mould or smells, would you really turn that down for a house with draughty windows?

Your system must be better than ours as we do still need to have the heating on. But having fresh air trickle into the bedroom overnight is great, I'm sure I'm sleeping better beacause of it.

 

[MikeG]

Do these systems really do that ? Seems a hell of a lot of complexity, which can doubtless be badly implemented and likely give trouble. Fair enough good insullation, and none of us want to spend money heating the garden, but electric fans to stop the house getting fousty - does this really stack up ? Is it really green ?

The saving on ventilation heat losses is far greater than the electricity used in running the fans. These units cost about £30 a year if run all day every day, but most people shut them down for the summer, so only use them for say 7 months a year. There's no complexity: it's a simple fan in a box with a plastic matrix heat exchanger, and some cheap plastic ducting. No moving parts other than the fan.

 

[MikeG]

Your system must be better than ours as we do still need to have the heating on....

No, it's not in place of the heating. It's just for the ventilation. The fact is that it enables us to have a super-insulated building sealed extremely tightly, so we use far less heating than a similar house built in the ordinary way.

 

[Cuchilo]

If I offered you a house which costs less than £100 a year to keep warm, had a constant turn-over of fresh air yet had no draughts, and never had any condensation, mould or smells, would you really turn that down for a house with draughty windows?

Depends what both houses looked like . I'd hate to live in a modern looking house no matter what the living costs where .
Plus i make timber double glazed windows so i would just remake them

 

[MikeG]

Depends what both houses looked like . I'd hate to live in a modern looking house no matter what the living costs where ........

As I said, I live in 310 year old oak framed cottage. My previous house was the second most energy efficient above-ground house built in Britain in the 20th century, but had a thatched roof, a jettied gable, and loads of exposed oak, herringbone brickwork and leaded lights internally. Building well with massive amounts of insulation doesn't impose any sort of look on a property, no matter what the cretins on Grand Designs say.

 

[sight-pin]

Not sure if that is what we have, some kind of fan/heat exchanger that comes on when the humidity rises (after a shower) and then turns itself off automatically. When it's cold and damp outside it can sometimes stay on for quite a long time.

I fitted one to comply with the plans for a kitchen extension i was building with our old house, When the DS turned up for the final inspection he said " oh i didn't know you were having a large cooker hood, your'd no need to have fitted the humidistat fan"

 

[summerdays]

I fitted one to comply with the plans for a kitchen extension i was building with our old house, When the DS turned up for the final inspection he said " oh i didn't know you were having a large cooker hood, your'd no need to have fitted the humidistat fan"

When we moved in our bathroom was cold and damp, with no radiator. So it was essential to improve that room and fast.

 

[Cuchilo]

As I said, I live in 310 year old oak framed cottage. My previous house was the second most energy efficient above-ground house built in Britain in the 20th century, but had a thatched roof, a jettied gable, and loads of exposed oak, herringbone brickwork and leaded lights internally. Building well with massive amounts of insulation doesn't impose any sort of look on a property, no matter what the cretins on Grand Designs say.

So while you enjoy living in those sealed and warm conditions with no "air flow " so does the dry rot and wood worm that will kill your sealed building .
Not that i'm complaining as ive had almost 30 years of work putting right older buildings with lack of air flow and rot .

 

[winjim]

No, it's not in place of the heating. It's just for the ventilation. The fact is that it enables us to have a super-insulated building sealed extremely tightly, so we use far less heating than a similar house built in the ordinary way.

Sorry yes, by "system" I meant the combination of the heating, ventilation and insulation all working together. Ours is good, better than any house I've lived in before, but not so good that we only need the heating on for an hour every three days!

Come to think of it, one of our extractors is from the downstairs loo which is the only part of the house with no heating, so it's extracting freezing cold air which can't be helping the heat recovery...

 

[MikeG]

So while you enjoy living in those sealed and warm conditions with no "air flow " so does the dry rot and wood worm that will kill your sealed building .
Not that i'm complaining as ive had almost 30 years of work putting right older buildings with lack of air flow and rot .

You've completely and utterly missed the point. There is continual airflow. The ventilation system turns the air over at a strictly controlled rate (not dependent on wind speed and direction). The atmosphere in such a building stays at a much more uniform level of humidity than in a naturally ventilated one. There is a continuous, even, and well distributed supply of fresh air. There is never excess moisture in the air. There is no necessity for hygroscopic materials to absorb excess humidity as in a normally ventilated ancient building. The sole plates in my house are utterly safe (so long as no cretin replaces the lime render with sand & cement). It's just that instead of air leaking into the building uncontrollably around windows and doors, it comes in through a pipe, and is then warmed by the heat extracted from the waste air, which is being extracted through a pipe.

 

[MikeG]

So while you enjoy living in those sealed and warm conditions ......so does the ....wood worm......

Forgot to respond to this. Woodworm can't survive warmth. Keep the house at 19C and you'll have no woodworm.

 

[Sandra6]

Do you know why when placed in a car or caravan etc they absorb a lot of water? They are trying to dry out the earth atmosphere, total con in my humble.

I'm missing something here - isn't that the point? To absorb the moisture?