HEALTHY HOMES COOPERATION

The air we breathe

DAMIEN MCGILL Director of the Healthy Home Cooperation

IMAGINE WAKING UP, FEELING FULLY REFRESHED OR COMING BACK TO A HOME THAT FEELS LIKE A WARMER, DRIER VERSION OF YOUR LOCAL PARK. HEALTHY HOME COOPERATION DIRECTOR DAMIEN MCGILL TELLS US HOW. 1. POSITIVE PRESSURE: These systems take poor quality air from the roof space and pump it into the bed and living rooms. These rely on leaky homes as the displaced air is forced out through gaps and crevices. They work fine in spring and autumn, but the ceiling air is too cool in winter and too hot in summer, adding to your power bill.

The way we use our homes has changed over the last generation or so. Family members are not home during the day with the windows open. Instead, we vacate the house en-masse on cold frosty mornings and return the same way in the cooling evenings. Windows don’t get opened as this allows heat to escape. Consequently, the internal air quality of the home suffers. Humidity and carbon dioxide levels increase, and mould forms on walls and ceilings. A symptom is the stuffy feeling you notice when coming home in the evenings.

When you live in a well-ventilated healthy home where the air you breathe inside is a purified version of the air outside, then you can feel refreshed every day. Balanced Mechanical Ventilation Systems with Heat Recovery (MVHR) are a necessary part of any healthy home.

Just occasionally opening windows is no longer appropriate for how we live in our homes.

There are three different types of ventilation system on the market, these are shown in the boxes on the right of the page.

Wouldn’t it be awesome to come home to a warm, well-ventilated healthy home every evening? At the Heathy Home Cooperation, we would certainly like to think so. We want the indoor air you breathe to positively influence your health and wellbeing. 2. NEGATIVE PRESSURE: If you left your bathroom fan or range hood on 24/7, this would suck out the moist air from these rooms, replacing it with air drawn in from the same cracks and crevices. This is arguably a cheaper, better system.

3. BALANCED WITH HEAT RECOVERY: MVHR systems work by constantly bringing a low rate of outside fresh air into the house. They extract moist stale air and replace it with just the right amount of fresh air, filtered and warmed by the heat of the extracted air, using a heat exchanger. The more airtight the home, the more efficiently these systems work. This is the best system.