Ventilation in the home is absolutely key in keeping your family happy and healthy. It’s important to ensure that you’ve got suitable ventilation options throughout - in particular, in those rooms that generate the most moisture.
As well as preventing condensation, ventilation will also dramatically improve your air quality and reduce the chances of any damage to your home.
Bathrooms generate a lot of water vapour and steam. Without installing proper ventilation, this can very quickly turn into condensation and damp - not only in the bathroom, but into neighbouring rooms in the house too.
Condensation occurs when moist air, such as vapour from your baths and showers, comes into contact with cooler air. Cooler air cannot hold as much water vapour as warm air, so it will condense into liquid water - which is why you often see water droplets on your windows and walls in bathrooms.
The big problem is that condensation causes damp and mould so this is something that we want to prevent at all costs.
Damp can be difficult to get rid of once it’s set in, and can also be damaging to your health and the integrity of your home. It can cause plaster to crumble, wallpaper to peel off, and even cause wooden structures to rot. Black mould may also grow as a result of the damp, which is particularly hazardous to your health.
Ventilation will significantly help with both damp and condensation, by removing the air with increased moisture from your bathroom before it condenses back into a liquid. It will draw out the air and expel it outside of your property - allowing fresh, dry air to circulate instead.
Having ventilation in your bathroom is an absolute MUST, as these are the rooms that will naturally contain the most moisture and therefore are at the highest risk of generating damp, and latterly, dangerous black mould.
And, to put it politely, bathrooms can smell, so extracting the air from the bathroom will remove odours and prevent stinky air from spreading into other rooms of the house.
The kitchen is another key area to have ventilation installed, as moisture will be released with everything that you do - from boiling a pan of water on the hob and using the kettle, to putting on the dishwasher or washing machine - they ALL generate added moisture.
There are many ‘quick fixes’ that you can do to help, such as putting a lid on a saucepan when boiling vegetables or shutting the kitchen door, but it’s absolutely key to also have ventilation to help you out - as these fixes alone just aren’t enough.
Most households will have an extractor fan already installed that sits above the hob - which is an important aspect of any kitchen. The fan will draw steam directly away from cooking and direct it out of the house, removing the moisture. It’s also important however to have additional ventilation alongside this.
By adding in additional ventilation, you can remove moisture from other sources, such as the washing machine and dishwasher. This will remove both moisture and smells from the entire room, rather than just the cooking area. It will also help to keep your kitchen air fresh and filtered at all times because it prevents cooking smells from lingering and spreading throughout a house.
While the kitchen and bathrooms are rooms where aid should be extracted, the living areas of a home are where you’d especially notice a constant supply of fresh, clean and filtered air.
You could install ventilation into every room of the house, but you can also achieve great results by fitting intake vents in key rooms such as the bedrooms and living room and having extractors in bathrooms and the kitchen.
This would mean your house has a gentle flow of fresh air throughout the property.
Better yet, our heat recovery ventilation systems will not only ensure that the air is fresh in every room, but will also use heat exchange to recover the warmth from outgoing air to heat the fresh air coming in. This will provide warm, clean air and contribute to lowering your energy costs too.
Could your home benefit from more ventilation? Our specialists are here to help! Contact us today to find out more.
