Hi guys,
Wondering if anyone with experience of MVHR in new builds can advise me on a few things.
Essentially I'm working on my self-build and I'm just wanting to make sure I'm correct about some of the building regulations regarding the installation of MVHR.
So the house will have the following dimensions:
Basement area - 210m2 (504m3)
Ground floor - 210m2 (504m3)
First floor - 135m2 (324m3)
Second floor - 135m2 (250m3)
Total 690m2 (1588m3)
Some additional info is that there are potentially 7 bedrooms, 1 kitchen, 1 utility and 7 bathrooms. The number of occupants on a daily basis will be 4, however we will likely have up to 10 people total staying in the house at any one time.
Now my questions were regarding the size of the MVHR I need to spec. I understand that according to building regs, the rate of exchange should be a minimum of 0.3l/s/m2, which based on my 690m2 of space gives me a system that can handle 207l/s (745m3/hr). Firstly, can anyone confirm that I have understood this properly? And then my second question is that whilst we do have a large space, the number of inhabitants most of the time won't be particularly high and some of the spaces, eg loft and basement space, won't be used on a daily basis - so would I be able to get away with using a system that just passes building regs (eg. one that can cope with say 800m3/hr - Daikin Air Conditioning Ducted Heat Exchanger VAM800J; or Lg Air Conditioning Eco V Heat Recovery Ventilator LZ-H080GBA5; or potentially a couple of the ), or would I need a system with a much higher potential capacity (eg ~1000-1500m3/hr - eg the LG heat recovery ventilator LZ-H150GBA5)? Was hoping those of you that own MHVR's and have experience using them can help me advise me as to whether Building regs requirements are over the top and in reality the system wouldn't need to work anywhere near as hard to meet our needs.
Also if anyone has any suggestions with any particular brand or heat exchanger then please feel free to recommend. I've explored the options from Titon and Zehnder but it seems I would need two of their systems to cope with the floor space - putting us at ~£4.5k for the systems; whilst the ones I've suggested above are approximately half of that so whilst they have a slightly lower efficiency (80%) I figured the extra for the Zehnders wouldn't be worth the time it would take to recover the extra £2-2.5k. Opinions welcome though! :) Thank you in advance