Home Design Guides: Ventilation, Climate control
Ever noticed that some houses are cooler or warmer than others without relying heavily on powered cooling or heating devices? This usually comes down to clever design...
Because we don't directly 'see' ventilation, we don't often think about it - but well-planned ventilation's an absolutely vital part of a healthy house. Find out why...
Many different types of vents exist for many different purposes and parts of the home. Find out what types of vents exist, what purposes they serve.
There are a few important performance considerations you need to understand in order to get your head around how home ventilation should work.
Heating ducts carry air all around your house, and vents often get dirty as a result of how much air flows through them. Find out if (and how) you need to clean them.
There are many different ways to move air in and out of houses (or parts of houses). Find out more about different vents, and different ways to ventilate a home.
Wind ventilation, also known as cross ventilation, is a simple and effective way to take advantage of the wind to keep your home cool and regulate air quality.
This type of ventilation takes advantage of rising heat and strategically located vents to draw air up through the top of the house, and in through the bottom of the house.
Mechanical ventilation (or forced ventilation) takes advantage of fans to help draw air in a particular direction to control ventilation in your home.
In many cases, the best way to ventilate a room is to combine two or more different techniques. See how mixed mode ventilation can help you ventilate for different needs.
In many cases, ventilation in a house is unintentional, and comes from small gaps and crevices. This kind of ventilation, in some cases, has a big effect on a house's air quality.
Whole house fans are large, ceiling mounted fans designed to help to ventilate homes by sucking warm air up into the ceiling, and bringing cool air in from vents and windows.
Hot air naturally rises, and ridge vents are an effective way of allowing this heat to easily escape through the highest point in a home - the ridge of the roof.
Working in conjunction with ridge vents, soffit vents can create a natural flow of ventilation in the roof cavity, which allows heat to easily escape through the top of a house.
An important part of some types of ventilation is to allow cool air into the lower parts of the house. Foundation vents allow cool air in at the lowest levels of the home.
Turbine vents, also commonly known as whirlybirds, provide effective natural ventilation through a ducted turbine mounted on the roof of a building.
Kitchens and bathrooms can become very steamy and stuffy, and powered ventilation fans are an excellent way of providing fast, effective ventilation to these areas.
Heat recovery ventilators (HRVs) and energy recovery ventilators (ERVs), while they do use energy, are an efficient and effective way to ventilate a tightly sealed home while maintaining the temperature.
When thinking about vents it's easy to get caught up in the details and forget that the most effective ventilation in a home almost always comes from its windows.