MHRV in period property

realmoonunit

Would installing MHRV in a period property be a waste of time and money?


From looking at the specs if the property is properly sealed up it could be a good way to recycle the heat in the property while ensuring that the now "air tight" house breaths properly thus reducing the risk of mould etc.



Does anyone have any experience in installing MHRV in an older property. The house we are looking at is c 1870 3 storey. Walls are about 2 foot thick. We will be doing a full rewire and replumb so it would make sense to have the ducting run in during this phase.



We are also planning on installing a high temp heat pump and a solar roof in an effort to reduce the carbon footprint of the house and reduce running costs.



Thanks for your feedback.

Wartburg

You´ve answered your question almost yourself. Because of the (air)tightness and lack of natural ventilation it makes perfect sense to have a functional ventilation strategy integrated.
The solutions to implement mHRV in existing houses are already there, even without having extensive ducting installed.
Have you made any calculation regarding your return of investment for the "high temperature" heat pump and your solar roof? It could make more sense to optimise your existing heating system, especially if you just use the house periodically.
In case you have access to the natural gas network, think about investing in a condensing gas boiler instead of a heat pump.

realmoonunit

Wartburg wrote: »

You´ve answered your question almost yourself. Because of the (air)tightness and lack of natural ventilation it makes perfect sense to have a functional ventilation strategy integrated.
The solutions to implement mHRV in existing houses are already there, even without having extensive ducting installed.
Have you made any calculation regarding your return of investment for the "high temperature" heat pump and your solar roof? It could make more sense to optimise your existing heating system, especially if you just use the house periodically.
In case you have access to the natural gas network, think about investing in a condensing gas boiler instead of a heat pump.

Thanks for the reply. We don't have access to gas network and I don't really fancy going down the lpg heating route. Ideally we would like t move to a more renewable type system hence the solar and heat pump mhrv thoughts. Typically we would only be in the house before and after work but be gone for most of the day. Is there any online calculators to work out cost / payback? I would think we will be looking at c 40k for the solar / heat pump / mhrv which is a large chunk of our budget.



We could upgrade heating controls, upgrade rads to cast iron (which we would rather) and zone the house, install a mhrv system and replace oil for new higher efficiency oil burner now. Then in c 10 years look at the heat pump / solar then. This would save us c c20k now.



All estimations are extremely rough.



Plenty to think about. I may be able to get the solar at cost though so if this comes to fruition then I would install that at this stage or at least provision for it while doing the rewire.