As buildings need to be built tighter to the stringent Building Regulations, without proper ventilation bathrooms and showers will suffer from condensation and mould growth, which can affect the health of occupants. It is therefore vitally important to ensure that these rooms have sufficient ventilation. But no longer can we advise occupants simply to open the window; the correct ventilation needs to be calculated to meet Level 3 of the Code for Sustainable Homes that will become mandatory in April next year. Not being aware of the Code is no excuse. Just as it is mandatory for all new homes to have an energy performance certificate when they are sold, new properties will now also need to meet Level 3 of the Code.
It is envisaged that property developers working across both the public and private sectors will apply the higher public sector standards in their private sector projects at the same time, thus setting the trend for the industry to follow.
However, traditional forms of ventilation will not meet our future needs. Standard extractor fans cannot offer the energy efficiency performance required for the latter stages of the Code for Sustainable Homes route map, whilst opening windows causes expensively generated heat to escape and lets pollution and, often, unacceptable noise in.
In apartments and houses, for either new build or large-scale renovations, there is a fully automated Demand Controlled Ventilation system that provides the best possible air quality whilst generating maximum savings in energy without the occupier having to do a single thing for it. This innovative ‘breathing dwelling’ concept – the Itho DemandFlow - is based on CO2 measurements in every room – both wet rooms and habitable rooms. With its sensor driven control, it balances the air requirements within the building, by boosting the extract rate in particular rooms as occupancy levels in those rooms rise, helping to maintain a clean and healthy environment. For particular use in extracting warm moist air from bathrooms and showers, the system ‘recycles’ this heat, whilst filtering in fresh air. The amount of air that is extracted from the bathroom is determined by the percentage of relative humidity (RH) in that room in combination with the temperature and/or level of contamination (CO2). In addition to the CO2 sensors, this system also has humidity sensors for two wet rooms, so a maximum of two bathrooms can be connected to the central extract ventilation system.
To comply with current government regulations all standards and legislation have to be taken into account in designing the ventilation system. In particular the rules relating to ventilation capacities are highly important. Regarding the ducts, the designers have to calculate the amounts of air extracted from the bathroom, toilet, kitchen, utility, bedrooms and the living room. For the installation for such systems a ventilation calculation has to be made. This is needed for the duct design, determining the necessary number of units, determining the number and type of extraction and supply components, and determining the distance between the ventilation extract and the fresh air supply.
One of the main features of the DemandFlow system is the substantial contribution this system makes in terms of energy saving. This is achieved by using an Appendix Q Eligible direct current (DC) ventilation unit and by ventilating only when and where ventilation is required. This considerably reduces the loss in heat associated with standard whole house mechanical ventilation systems.
This system can be installed even at late design stages of a project, as the extraction points are easy to relocate. The DemandFlow has been designed using 80mm diameter semi-rigid aluminium or 110mm x 54mm Modular plastic ducting throughout, therefore making the routing of ducts easier to facilitate.
Easy to install, the system is also easy to maintain, and after installation by a qualified installer, is instantly ready to operate.
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