A MHVR SYSTEM HAS BEEN RETRO FITTED INTO THIS NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE BUILT IN 1999
reduce energy bills with mhrv
Mitsubishi Electric advises on how to lower bills by saving heat energy with mechanical ventilation.
Today’s building regulations place an increas-
ing demand on selfbuilders for more and more air tightness in new build properties, so that little or no heat energy can escape from the house. So whilst the air in older properties is constantly refreshed, mainly due to the draughty windows and doors, in today’s houses selfbuilders need to consider how they can best ventilate the prop- erties to remove stale or damp air. Houses need to breathe. If they don’t they
can quickly choke up with stale polluted air, which is bad for the homeowner and bad for the fabric of the building. With the old ways of letting a house breathe
(draughts) no longer available to us, because we live in an energy saving age, selfbuilders have to find new ways to bring fresh air into their property. This is where mechanical ventilation systems
come into play, with units that include a heat recovery element so that fresh air is brought in whilst as much of the heat energy from the out- going stale air is saved. These mechanical heat recovery ventilation
(MHRV) systems are designed for the UK resi- dential market. They take air from outside, cir- culate it and push it back out again but at the same time they reclaim most of the home’s heat energy. That can lead to lower energy bills and greater fuel efficiency for the household.
26 selfbuilder & homemaker
www.sbhonline.eu THE BEDROOMS BENEFIT FROM CONSTANT FRESH AIR
With modern mechanical ventilation, the out-
going air passes over the incoming air and heat energy is transferred from one to the other, so the cold, fresh, incoming air is pre-heated before it joins the air inside the property. Many systems have a plastic or aluminium core but some manufacturers favour a paper core, because it allows for the transfer of both latent (humidity/moisture) and sensible heat (tempera- ture) to help maintain a comfortable internal environment for minimal energy consumption. “The best way to explain how it works is to
simply take a piece of normal A4 paper, roll it up and then blow through it; you will instantly feel the heat transfer to your hand where you are holding it,” explains Mitsubishi Electric’s Jason Tinsley. “That concept is exactly how this paper core works, transferring heat across the paper, without transferring any of the stale smells or pollutants.” This system can recover up to 75 per cent of
the heat energy in the stale, outgoing air and transfer this into the fresh supply of air. In winter when the outside air temperature is
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68