Despite the fact that building a house in Russia for a quarter of a century is not something exotic, customers, and sometimes even contractors, have a very superficial attitude to planning design and to such “trifles” as electrical wiring or sewer disposal planning. Experts often do not themselves know how to make ventilation in a private house, focusing not on the outdated knowledge of the 80s obtained in universities, but on gaining experience in field conditions. But then a logical conclusion arises – if the designers themselves grew, as specialists, simultaneously with new technologies, then “a person with a head, hands and patience” is quite capable of a single project, especially with the motivation of the owner.
Ventilation in the house: the requirements and principles of the device
The most “invisible” but very important part of a comfortable atmosphere is the ventilation in the house. With the appearance of plastic windows, a massive boom in the installation of PVC packages began, with almost absolute sound and air insulation. However, the ventilation system of the houses of the Soviet time was calculated according to the then sanitary standards, taking into account the relevant materials and structures. Ventilation in the wooden house of that time was generally the most natural and absolute. Literally in 2-3 months, the owners of “silent” windows began to independently and unsystematically solve the problem of how to make ventilation in the house, punching holes in the outer walls with their own hands, which only made the situation worse.
However, modern apartment buildings are built according to new requirements and standards, so this problem has disappeared for ordinary tenants. But those lucky ones who are building their own house have to take this factor into account, and installing proper ventilation in the house is not cheap, and in most cases the error will cost an expensive alteration of not only the ventilation system, but will also affect at least the frame structures.
Installing a general house ventilation system with your own hands is quite realistic, albeit with limitations. It is only necessary to calculate the air exchange, select the type of system (natural or forced), take into account the climatic conditions when selecting modules for the future system and, in fact, mount it.
Since a private house is not a multi-story skyscraper, the calculation of the ventilation scheme in the house with its own hands does not require much effort, although in reality it is governed by five cross-section codes. In the roughest form, the calculation looks like this:
- in a residential area of less than 20 m2 air exchange should occur at a speed of 3 m3/hour;
- if the area of the room is more than 20 m2, it is not expedient to use the area calculation – the result can differ greatly from the real one due to the specificity of the layout. It is enough to use another method: we take into account that the air exchange values must be at least 30 m.3/ hour per person;
- “Dirty” rooms (kitchen, toilet, utility rooms, various storage facilities and workshops) require at least 110 m3/hour. The exception is the kitchen with a gas stove, which in itself is too actively using oxygen. It requires an inflow at a speed of air not less than 140 m3/hour.
These parameters are quite enough for calculating the ventilation system of a private house in ideal climatic conditions (summer temperature is +250C, in winter around -50C) when using natural ventilation. However, at -200C to replace the air volume with a ratio of one and a half times the volume of the whole house per hour, equivalent to “heating” to 0-50C. It should be borne in mind that the amount of energy expended on heating the premises is not a linear function of the temperature difference. Additional efforts to heat the incoming air will be too expensive even without logistics. And even when the optimum parameters are reached, you need to be prepared for the most severe drafts due to sharp drops in air temperatures in different rooms.
It only remains to choose in advance which type of ventilation of a residential building will be used: natural or forced.
Obviously, a country house is significantly larger than a city apartment, so when calculating it is possible not to think about SNiPs. It is enough to accept the air exchange values equal to 30 m.3/ hour per person – and the total error in the calculations will not exceed 10-20%. To calculate how to properly do the ventilation in the house, first of all you need to correctly distribute the air flow.
Natural ventilation in a private house can be arranged very simply: from all the “dirty” rooms (kitchen, bathroom, garage, cellar, furnace, technical rooms) air is removed using exhaust.
In addition, it is worthwhile to equip the “trunk” exhaust gases in the garage, which is put on the exhaust pipe of the car.
In all living rooms (“clean” rooms) it is necessary to equip exclusively the inflow. Installing hoods in each room results in a waste of heat and drafts – which have a floor temperature of 2-4.0With lower than at the level of human height.
To exhaust ventilation in a private house in the bathroom, in the kitchen, in the toilet, etc. It was involved in full force, and constantly, it is necessary to equip these rooms with vertical channels. And the higher the ventilation channel, the better the thrust, so it is not very advisable to organize a homemade ventilation scheme with access to the walls. Typically, a typical project of exhaust ventilation at home determines the location of such channels in close proximity to each other, so that they can be placed in a common shaft, and that they went to the roof as close as possible to the ridge. This ensures the maximum height of each channel (that is, the draft) and significantly reduces the protrusion of pipes above the roof surface.
In brick houses, ventilation channels are laid out with the same brick directly in the masonry of internal load-bearing walls – this is the most economical, but reliable solution. However, in wooden and frame houses it is simply impractical to use brick exclusively for ventilation. It is enough to use cheap plastic pipes and PVC pipes for ventilation in the walls of a private house, or it can even be limited to sewage pipes: they are much cheaper and also noticeably stronger. In addition, instructions for arranging in a private house ventilation from plastic pipes (photos, videos, illustrations and diagrams explaining them) can be found in abundance on special Internet resources due to the simplicity of the design.
Important! Architects do not just try to avoid high pipes for outlet ventilation: after all, the withdrawal of the channel for proper ventilation in a private house is always useful to sheathe and insulate. This will eliminate condensation inside the channel, and it will be much easier to protect the “exhaust” of the pipe with a cap against snow and rain.
There is another nuance. In apartment buildings in 90% of cases, exhaust ducts and sewage pipes are located in a common shaft. But for individual construction such a solution to the question of how to make ventilation in the house is highly undesirable. A high-rise building due to the height is always provided with excellent traction, but a low cottage under certain weather conditions may encounter the effect of reverse thrust. Sewer “fragrance” throughout the house will be provided.
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To solve this problem, masters often suggest to install an air check valve at the end of the chimney. However, it should be remembered that in the event of an icing up, the valve is often blocked.
Country houses rarely exceed 5 meters in height, so traction may be trivially inadequate. Therefore, you must not forget to lead the wiring to the channel. If there is a shortage of thrust, it will take just 15 minutes to mount the fan with a grill on the “exhaust” of the pipe.
Important! Almost all domestic fans require installation on pipes with a diameter of 100 mm. And not every fan (axial or channel) will be effective, despite the characteristics stated in the passport. They are adapted to horizontal current and are unable to push the air high.
For vertical flows, centrifugal devices are optimal. Despite the lower power of the characteristics, the asymmetry of the connection to the axis of the device’s body and three times the price, they “work their own” down to the last electron.
Actually, the inflow itself is provided mainly by window frames, and more precisely, by conventional or folding window leaves with or without intake grilles, and microventilation. However, in winter, the air will be cold, so ventilators can be built into the glass unit or window frame. Before entering the room, fresh air from the street enters the system of ventilation channels, where it takes a small amount of heat from the room. The efficiency of the ventilator allows, for example, to raise the temperature of fresh air from -200C to 00C, which almost completely eliminates the effect of “cold floor”.
Since the house is built from scratch, it is easier and more practical to use wall valves, which are openings in the wall, blocked by spring-adjustable valves or valves. Obviously, they do not change the air temperature, but no one bothers to place them above or behind the battery. In this case, the design of window frames is generally unimportant.
Important! A separate moment is boilers, stoves and fireplaces, as they consume large amounts of oxygen. If the boiler is already connected to the coaxial flue gas system, then you should not worry about its special ventilation. Otherwise, you just need to add inlet valves.
For the fireplace, the ideal solution would be your own channel from the street, displayed directly below the burning zone. This will ensure the minimum selection of oxygen from the total volume of the room, the incoming air will immediately warm up, and the fireplace itself will burn much better due to the influx of oxygen from the outside.
The Russian climate, in any case, requires proper heating, so natural ventilation in a country house is not enough in all regions of the country. The problem of cold air in most cases can be solved only by forced ventilation, which, in turn, can be both centralized and local.
In the simplest case, the most budgetary option is used – be careful, as designers often try to reduce the cost estimate, when the entire piping network from “dirty” rooms is reduced to one point, where a powerful fan throws air out. At the same time, the inflow remains natural through the windows and valves. However, such a system is fundamentally no different from the natural, because the supply air still comes cold. Exactly the same effect, but significantly cheaper, can be achieved if separate “exhausts” with fans are installed for the kitchen and bathroom. Obviously, this is money down the drain, and literally.
In this supply and exhaust system, the inlet and outlet air ducts converge in a ventilation unit, which may consist of a supply and exhaust fans, a heat exchanger, a heater and automation. That is, the air as it enters, and is withdrawn forcibly. Moreover, if for a ventilation system of an air in a private house to buy a heat exchanger, then its installation will provide not only heating of the incoming air, but also significant savings in electricity or fuel. This is due to the heat exchange flows in the recuperator, which is a block in which two air flows go through thin draw plates to meet each other — warm from the room and cold from the street. Over a period of tens to hundreds of meters, the warm air gives off thermal energy to the incoming cold stream, which provides heat savings of 25-50%. In summer, the heat exchanger is turned off.
After the device with heat recovery, a heater is installed, the operation of which is controlled by automatic equipment. The air temperature after recovery increases to a comfortable + 10-150C. Automation adds the ability to smoothly control independent input and output streams.
The centralized system can also perform additional functions, the main of which is mechanical filtration of the incoming air flow.
But you need to take into account certain disadvantages:
- expensive equipment;
- the presence of a network of pipelines with a large cross-section throughout the house requires skilled installation;
- the central unit is in itself fairly noisy and for this reason alone requires a separate technical room of 6 or more square meters.
However, for small houses there is a reasonable compromise: arrangement of local forced ventilation.
There is a wide range of small-size ventilation units for one room. They are also equipped with fans, filter, recuperator, preheater and ionizer. Outwardly, they differ little from conventional air conditioners, they do not need any air ducts, except for a small outlet to the outside.
That is, in fact, several such devices completely “block” residential premises. That’s just to solve the question of how to do in a private house ventilation of the bathroom, toilet, kitchen and, perhaps, the basement still need to install channels of natural ventilation.
But such a compromise solution is quite possible to obtain without recourse to specialists: it will be sufficient to use detailed instructions with diagrams and photos. Ventilation in a private house in this case can be done by hand.
