House Ventilation

[mreynolds]

I have been doing some research on insulation and house ventilation and I am in need of some common sense here. There is a wealth of information out their on how to build a tight house. Fine homebuilding just had a great article about it in their last months issue. I have no problem figuring out how to insulate the house, however I do have a problem with the ventilation issue. How do I avoid the "sick house" syndrome? Also the other issue I want to avoid is the negative pressure created by products like our dryer, wood burning stove and kitchen appliances. Here is what we are building.

1. 1600 square foot ranch, pretty standard. 3 bedrooms two baths. Full basement, Truss framed roof, giant rectangle, pretty simple for the first time.
2. We would like to install hot water base board heating. Wife has allergies and it seems like this is the best option.

Now I know that there are such things as "House Ventilors" but I have only seen them used in conjunction with forced air furnaces. Is there another route? Could I just install the ventilator in the main hall in the center of the house? Or should we consider forced air again with a some sort of filter tied into the house ventilator? :roll:

[Rich]

Yes along with the ventilator you will need somehow to supply the air that the ventilator takes away. You are probably going to need some type of air handling unit that supplies air in the basement and exhausts in the attic. This is entirely my opinion as I am no mechanical engineer.

[mreynolds]

There is definitely no lack of information out there. The problem is with these technologies, trying to figure out the balance between what we need and what is too much excess. I was talking with a guy today I know does heating and cooling and he seems to believe there are some really cost effective upgrades in the new forced air furances that are worth the cost. The problem he mentioned with the ventilators is the added cost (2500) and the wealth of scientific information makes it very confusioning for both consumers and people like himself.

[Rich]

One thing I've seen done is putting the exhaust and supply equipment on a vfd (variable frequency drive). That way you can use a sensor in the house with a setpoint pressure difference from inside to outside - the vfd drives the rpm's up or down to keep the setpoint. That is probably cost prohibitive in a residence but could be done.