Ventilation is vital to any building as uninterrupted airflow prevents stale, stuffy air from collecting and any lingering smells. In addition, maintaining good air quality is a surprisingly integral part of a person's good health, especially for the many people who suffer from respiratory conditions such as asthma and hayfever.

Whether those conditions are life-threatening or not, adequate ventilation will provide a pleasant respite as it will help prevent dust, pollen and pollutant accumulation. There are many different approaches to delivering much-needed ventilation to your building, so it's essential to know which one is best for your environment.

Different Ventilation Strategies

There are many different ventilation strategies, all aimed at sufficiently ventilating a space, whether a home or a workplace.

Assisted Ventilation

Unfortunately, too many buildings adopt a policy of no assisted ventilation. Although this common solution used to be quite effective in the past, buildings without effective insulation would automatically leak air, providing an easy exchange throughout the day. The issue in modern times is that while improving our homes to be well insulated with higher EPC scores, this seals the air inside until it creates an unpleasant stale, stuffy atmosphere. This is why adding ventilation to your building is essential.

Natural Ventilation

Natural ventilation is a relatively new concept that is implemented during the construction phase of a building. This usually comprises various types of vents or ducting, such as a solar chimney that is incorporated into the structure of the building and helps replace the air without intervention. This strategy is not a common choice because it requires significant changes to your premises if it was built without these systems.

Balancing Ventilation

Balanced ventilation is a system where separate fans control both the inlet and exhaust airflow of an HVAC. This provides much greater control of where the air is drawn from, where it goes and where the exhaust air is sent. You have a choice with a balanced system to choose a point-sourced or ducted system to suit your needs. A ducted system makes it easier to deliver fresh air to workspaces or living spaces and exhausts indoor air from places that collect moisture or pollutants, such as bathrooms or workshops.

Exhaust vs Supply Ventilation

Small powered fans are commonly used in bathrooms to cycle the air and assist in the removal of moisture. This is called exhaust-only mechanical ventilation. These fans can either operate continuously or intermittently to create a modest negative pressure that exchanges the internal and external air. A similar alternative to this is a supply-only ventilation system. This requires a powered fan to force air into the room, pushing the internal air to escape through any open doors, windows or minor air leakage cracks around the building. A supply-only ventilation system creates air pressure in the house either in one central location or through a ducting system.

Flexible VS Rigid Ducting