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Hi,

 

Since my parents moved into their new apartment, my mum has insisted in turning off the central ventilation system as she doesn't like the noise. I am sure it is partly also because she thinks it saves money and likes turning things off.

 

Frequently I have gone to their apartment and found the air very stuffy.

 

Today they called me and said that the CO2 monitor in their bedroom was red showing a high of 1664PPM over the last 24 hours and an average of over 1200. They haven't been feeling great for the last couple of days.

 

Apparently my dad wanted to put the heating on and instead my mum closed all the window vents as she believed they were making it cold, thus the flat was totally sealed up.

 

Would this CO2 level just be due to a lack of ventilation or should I worry about something else.

 

They have been robustly told to stop closing all the vents!

Edited by AliG
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Is is just central extraction or a full blown mvhr system?

 

I am not surprised it gets stuffy with the ventilation turned off.

 

I think it was Jeremy that plotted CO2 levels in his bedroom at the old house.  Yes it was, here you go

 

 

There is not much you can do apart to tell them the cause of the high CO2 is them breathing with the ventilation turned off.  Tell them to turn the ventilation back on, or stop breathing......

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Just central extraction. I have told them so many times.

 

My mum is of the view that if you have had the heating on then you can never open a window or let any of the heat escape.

 

They came to see us yesterday and she definitely didn't seem right, I think this is the reason.

 

Thanks for that thread, I was looking for it as I knew someone had posted their levels. Mum said she didn't think it fell much below 700 which isn't crazy looking at the other numbers.

Edited by AliG
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All houses need ventilation as long as there are people in them.  It is a shame they didn't fit mvhr as then she would not have to worry about the heat loss, but that is an unavoidable necessity.

 

As others will testify, our new house with mvhr always feel very fresh inside.

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It is a new developer built apartment. I think as has often been discussed people don't know the importance of ventilation especially as houses become more air tight.

 

Before you could get away with closing vents etc as there was so much air infiltration, but not now.

 

My brother was getting mould in his en suite and bedroom in a 20 year old apartment. I discovered that the extractor was broken in the en suite, they had all the window vents closed and they were hanging stuff up to dry. No wonder it was getting mouldy.

 

They will have MVHR in their new place if we get planning permission for it.

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My CO2 in bedroom goes to about 700 overnight.....thats 2 hoomans and a woofer breathing.  During the day it drops back to 450-500 which is about where the rest of the house sits as a norm.  Other than bathroom boost MVHR is running at about 30% less than building regs as recommended here.

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It might be worth seeing if there is space to fit a sound attenuator near the ventilation unit.

Is it just extract? normally more sound issues come from the supply side of MVHR units.

Or is the sound coming mostly from the actual ventilation unit? If so you could look at ways of minimizing the sound from the unit itself.

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12 hours ago, AliG said:

Hi,

 

Since my parents moved into their new apartment, my mum has insisted in turning off the central ventilation system as she doesn't like the noise. I am sure it is partly also because she thinks it saves money and likes turning things off.

 

Frequently I have gone to their apartment and found the air very stuffy.

 

Today they called me and said that the CO2 monitor in their bedroom was red showing a high of 1664PPM over the last 24 hours and an average of over 1200. They haven't been feeling great for the last couple of days.

 

Apparently my dad wanted to put the heating on and instead my mum closed all the window vents as she believed they were making it cold, thus the flat was totally sealed up.

 

Would this CO2 level just be due to a lack of ventilation or should I worry about something else.

 

They have been robustly told to stop closing all the vents!

I think you take this evidence and get your mother educated in these matters. People have funny ideas and it is generally through a lack of understanding. They are now feeling ill, saving money is fine but don't make yourself sick over it if you can afford it. Can I assume they can afford it?

 

It might be worth trying to work out what it costs her a year to run and prove it is not too bad (if it is bad then... well I don't know).

 

The flat has this system so am I right in thinking it is a new/newly renovated place probably with good insulation? 

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11 hours ago, AliG said:

It is a new developer built apartment. I think as has often been discussed people don't know the importance of ventilation especially as houses become more air tight.

 

Before you could get away with closing vents etc as there was so much air infiltration, but not now.

 

My brother was getting mould in his en suite and bedroom in a 20 year old apartment. I discovered that the extractor was broken in the en suite, they had all the window vents closed and they were hanging stuff up to dry. No wonder it was getting mouldy.

 

They will have MVHR in their new place if we get planning permission for it.

This is what happens - again, a lack of understanding of how buildings breath. 

 

I don't get people who won't ventilate their houses, with windows or by running a mechanical system. It is just not natural to have a house sealed up all the time with no fresh air movement.

 

We have windows open more or less all the time it is reasonable to do so, which is really most of the time, even in the winter a window or two will be opened for a short while. When we wake up, within 5 minutes, about 5 windows are open, I am in my home office right now with fresh summer air in the room and the bedrooms are all fresh. We were away from Friday till Monday just there and when I walked into the house the first thing I noticed was how stale the air in the house felt, before I even started to unpack the car I had windows flung open. Ours is a 1960's build and the extension will have MVHR which will be tied into some rooms in the existing building as I like the idea of ventilation all the time especially during the winter.

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8 minutes ago, joe90 said:

 

Superglue them open, for their own health/benefit.

Perhaps this demonstrates that an airtight house might be good for someone that understands it, but not so good for the average home owner who understands nothing?

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6 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Perhaps this demonstrates that an airtight house might be good for someone that understands it, but not so good for the average home owner who understands nothing?

 

I agree, it’s also been mentioned on here before about houses with MVHR that people don’t understand (cleaning filters etc). I am sure there are people about that don’t service their gas boilers, just wait for them to go wrong before having to do something!

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Just now, joe90 said:

 

I agree, it’s also been mentioned on here before about houses with MVHR that people don’t understand (cleaning filters etc). I am sure there are people about that don’t service their gas boilers, just wait for them to go wrong before having to do something!

Yes, like the people that tell you their septic tank has not been emptied for 20 years and it is still working perfectly.

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Just now, ProDave said:

Perhaps this demonstrates that an airtight house might be good for someone that understands it, but not so good for the average home owner who understands nothing?

Exactly my thoughts. I suspect we are creating a housing stock with disastrous issues in the wrong hands.

 

It's like new drivers, they are so used to new cars just doing so much for them and being easy to drive, they are quiet so they drive like idiots all the time too fast because they are not getting all the feelings of speed like we used to (and they are looking at their phones not the speedo). Give them an older car and they can't cope, they would literally mechanically destroy it and probably end up in an accident. It is the same with houses. Explain to them that gearboxes didn't have synchromesh! 

 

I am one of these people where almost everything I do I take into consideration the machine or structure or item I am about to use. I am just programmed as "engineer" so everything is assessed and consideration taken to protect or prolong it's serviceable life. A primary example is that I have always been a mechanically very sympathetic driver because I know mechanically how every push rod, con rod, crank shaft, flywheel, clutch plate, clutch cover, input shaft, lay shaft, output flange, drive shaft CV joint etc. all work while a vehicle is being driven. So I know why slamming it into a low gear and gunning it isn't really very good for a car, or why going along a bumpy road in a low gear puts massive moments of inertia onto the whole system all the way back to the crank. 

 

Give people a technically or scientifically engineered house then you need the owners or "operators" to know how to run it and I think, generally, people are not willing to think or consider things and believe items, mechanical or structural with just work or exist. We are a different breed on a forum like this, we get it and we take an interest because we are building homes for ourselves, good homes that we spend years thinking about and years planning and years executing and we want the best.

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1 minute ago, Carrerahill said:

We are a different breed on a forum like this, we get it and we take an interest because we are building homes for ourselves, good homes that we spend years thinking about and years planning and years executing and we want the best.

 

Too right mate. ?  With regard cars, I was recently told of a new Volvo that automatically when approaching another vehicle accelerates to overtake on the motorway and return to its set speed, whatever happened to human control, driving craft (or am I just turning into a grumpy old man??

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11 minutes ago, Carrerahill said:

It's like new drivers, they are so used to new cars just doing so much for them and being easy to drive

And because of these idiots and super easy to drive cars we now have much safer roads, even allowing for the increased numbers of drivers, the higher average speeds.and cars that are capable of accelerating so much faster than we were used to, not to mention the greater distances traveled.

And they all do 50 MPG too.

Like anything new, people adjust, and adjust quickly.  This does not mean that everyone adjusts, just the vast majority do.

Edited by SteamyTea
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7 minutes ago, Carrerahill said:

It's like new drivers, they are so used to new cars just doing so much for them and being easy to drive, they are quiet so they drive like idiots all the time too fast because they are not getting all the feelings of speed like we used to (and they are looking at their phones not the speedo). Give them an older car and they can't cope, they would literally mechanically destroy it and probably end up in an accident. It is the same with houses. Explain to them that gearboxes didn't have synchromesh! 

Offer them a drive in my old Landrover.

 

On second thoughts, no. I would prefer the gearbox and clutch continued to work.

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My son (a car salesman man) who drives all new cars fir his day job loves my Gentry, (a kit car built from a 1974 triumph vitesse), he also always preferred my 1962 triumph motorbike to my fairly new BMW motorbike. He says it’s “proper driving”.

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Bedroom CO₂ level (in the old house I'm staying in) and wind speed (at Wick airport, about 20 km away) for the last fortnight. I always leave the bedroom door ajar but otherwise make no effort to ventilate more than the house more than it does for itself. As you can see, roughly speaking the higher the wind speed the lower the overnight CO₂. I think with old houses if you didn't make a conscious effort to ventilate you at least got low CO₂ some of the time to recover, with a modern well-sealed home you probably don't get that much higher peak levels but you might well get them much more of the time which, it seems to me, might be more of a health issue.

co2.png

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