Hello friends,
I live in a block of flats and our flats can accumulate a bit of condensation, particularly in winter.
The bathroom and separate loo do not have outside windows, they are fully enclosed. On the inside of the building.
The original design of the block relied on a ventilation shaft that rose to the block’s roof where industrial fans supposedly run at all times. This ventilation system seems to have weakened in recent years and I thought it'd take ages to get fixed. (And I was right.) So upon moving into the flat, I decided get my own ventilation system set up.
The diagram below is how the builder designed it and implemented it. This was 2.5 years ago.
The extractor fans are axial, but now I learn that that was a poor choice. AirVents 10cm diameter.
The ventilation DOES work. A toilet paper square will be pulled in, if you hold it close to either grille. And there have been no condensation issues in the flat. When both extractors are working, you can see the flap at the external wall lifted slightly. But, I haven’t been convinced that the extraction itself was very significant.
Both extractors have spring operated non-return flaps, to prevent backdraft.
The bathroom fan (see diagram) has now stopped working and this failure has led me to rethink the whole thing.
I have an eye now on a longer term solution as opposed to a solution that ticks the boxes but probably isn’t doing the job well.
Problem #1: Given the bends, shouldn't I replace the axial extractors with centrifugal ?
Problem #2: Given that the WC extractor air will have to pass by the bathroom extractor, it is well nigh impossible to prevent mixing of both airs. True or false?
Contamination has probably been happening already, it’s just that it’s only me in the flat and how can I be in two places at the same time? Who am I kidding? The WC air is probably going to feed into the bathroom despite the backdraught flap.