Ventillation Retrofit - 3 Bed Semi

philboy

Hi,
We recently purchased a 3 bed semi (110 sq.m, BER: C2) in Galway and I'm looking for advice/feedback on what you would recommend doing given the rough plan that I have outlined below.

We should be ready to move in in approximately 4-6 weeks. My main priority for the house is a well insulated home with good air quality. The home was built in 2003 and has double-glazing, OFCH, attic has loose-fill insulation, don't know yet what the cavity has.

We will be adding a Nest smart thermostat to the OFCH and Tado Smart TRVs to the bedrooms and main living areas. We are looking to replace the open fire place in the living room with an inset stove with back boiler. We are also considering solar thermal or solar pv (rear roof faces WSW). In future we do wish to convert the attic so we can't have too many panels on the roof. The hot water requirement is currently just for 2 adults.

I have light asthma and wish to have a nicely insulated home with good air quality. I am thinking of living in the property for a few weeks/months without doing any work to see how comfortable it is and what the humidity levels are like in the various rooms. I will be purchasing a thermo-hygrometer.

Given that we have only a C2 BER (awaiting the certificate), the house won't be airtight and I presume that the cost for this would be very high, this rules out MVHR (based on reading feedback on other threads). Would we be better off going with DCV or a system like Lunos which have MVHR built into the one unit and don't require major piping work done in the house.

Should I forget about ventilation until I insulate the house a bit better and then re-measure the humidity levels again? I think that I will require a vent in the living room when I have the inset stove installed so it would be great to have my research done on the various systems before I talk to the plumber.

If anyone has any advice or experienced a similar retrofit, all feedback is greatly appreciated.

BryanF

What's your budget

philboy

BryanF wrote: »

What's your budget

Hi Bryan,
Budget is open ended really.

DOCARCH

I'd say your best bet is demand control ventilation system.

SemperFidelis

I did a retrofit of MVHR a year ago to a 1970s house. I wouldn't be without it now. The house suffered from mould and was always stuffy. It always feels fresh now and mould is no longer an issue. The house is far from airtight but whenever I do any work on a room I'll try to closeup any air leaks as much as I can.

If you have fitted wardrobes in bedrooms you can run the ducts down the back of these to get to the rooms below.

BryanF

philboy wrote: »

Hi Bryan,
Budget is open ended really.

The reason I ask is, you could spend 50k on envelope including windows & Ewi suitable Ext air stove to get a house air-tight and insulated enough for mvhr.

Unless you've that kind of budget for fabric alone I'd concur with docarch

philboy

Hi,
We could not push to €50k at the moment given what else we wish to do in the house.

I have read up about EWI and it looks great but given that we are new, I don't want to annoy my neighbour and have the house looking "odd" with one half having EWI. Also, it is very costly.

I'm going to reassess the space and see if dry lining the external facing walls would still leave us with ample space. If not, I may look at getting the cavity pumped with beads. If I do go one of these two routes, am I better to wait and measure the air quality/moisture before proceeding with DCV or a Lunos system?

BryanF

Ewi is not that expensive probably 15k. Your neighbours are not an excuse.

You can't dry line without pumping. Drylining is not continuous.

If you don't have wall/window vents install the system straight away.

JonathonS

If you are pumping the cavity take a look at Walltite closed-cell foam, manufacturers claim it provides insulation and air tightness.

philboy

With the other plans that we have, we would go for pumping the cavity rather than EWI due to costs.

With an Aereco DCV system being retrofitted, does this mean that there would be ducting all over the house? Bathroom is upstairs at front of the house, ensuite upstairs towards the rear, kitchen towards the rear and downstairs toilet & utility at the back of the house in an extension. This is why I was considering the Lunos instead.

Alkers

Sorry to hi-jack a bit but we're in a similar situation!

BryanF wrote: »

If you don't have wall/window vents install the system straight away.

Would you have an idea of a ballpark cost for a DCV system in a 3-bed semi?

Our place was built in the 50s, we have a kitchen extension which has a typical ducted wall vent but other than that we have minimal external ventilation.

There is a wall vent from the living room downstairs to the front porch but it has been filled with some sort of expanding foam type filler. The upstairs bedrooms all have vents to the attic which had been sealed over with insulation and floor boards. We have cleared away the insulation and cut out holes in the attic flooring but the rooms still get quite stuffy and the windows condense when it's cold. We have added an extractor fan to the bathroom and always open the window when showering. We don't have any combustion appliances (Gas boiler is in the attic and room sealed, cooker is induction).

Thanks

BryanF

1k supply 1k extract (supply & test of kit only)
Question is how much to core opes/install/hide/box-out/tidy up? 2k?

SeanElec1

Hi Philboy,
Looking at your ventilation post. 3 years on what did you do and are you happy with it. I'm in a 30 years old house that is OK but could be made more comfortable and less draughty in some areas and less mouldy in some others, so I'm at the start of the process youu described 3 years ago.

Regards, Sean.