eandg Posted June 2, 2019 Share Posted June 2, 2019 Had some discussions with mvhr suppliers today, all of whom advised they were 'at the expensive end' though their estimates for design and supply ranged from 4-8k for a two storey, 200 sq.m house. And one advised I'd need an external vent whereas the others didn't. Any rough guesstimates and do you need to design in an external vent? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted June 2, 2019 Share Posted June 2, 2019 All MVHR systems, without exception, need two external ducts, one for fresh air intake, one for exhaust. I installed a very expensive active MVHR system (it includes an air-to-air heat pump, so can cool and heat the house) and the total installed cost was about £5k. A more basic MVHR could have been installed for about half that. This was for a 130m2 house. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexphd1 Posted June 2, 2019 Share Posted June 2, 2019 basic mvhr have two external vents, one for air intake and one for air exhaust. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexphd1 Posted June 2, 2019 Share Posted June 2, 2019 Very hard to comment on price without more detail. Is it one with a build in heat pump as jsharris has or a basic one, is supply install and commission or supply only? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted June 2, 2019 Share Posted June 2, 2019 I got an ebay mvhr unit for under £500 and the ducting, vents and plenums was about £1000 from BPC, self installed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eandg Posted June 2, 2019 Author Share Posted June 2, 2019 (edited) They were for design, supply and commission (but not install) with separate maintenance agreements. Install quoted as between 1.5-3k (the higher end advised it'd be daft to get them to install it for that cost). Edited June 2, 2019 by eandg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eandg Posted June 2, 2019 Author Share Posted June 2, 2019 And on the vents, presumably they're not the most attractive so for aesthetic reasons you'd want to keep them to the rear or at least sides of the property? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bitpipe Posted June 2, 2019 Share Posted June 2, 2019 I have a large house (basement, two floors and room in roof) and use a Vent Axia Sentinel Kinetic plus unit from BPC - it was about £1500 and the associated ducts etc about the same again. I installed it myself (and I am fairly incompetent). Runs at about 30% for normal use and 50% at boost. You should be able to get away with something smaller and need less ducting etc. It's a standard MVHR with summer bypass - no heat pump or enthalpy unit so just delivers heat recovered fresh air, no heating or cooling capability/ BPC did a system design for free from the TF plans and there was enough leeway in the supplied materials and design to make it work once the frame was erected. I probably should have specced a few steel penetrations, would have made life easier but managed to squeeze it all in. Balanced it myself too, borrowing the measurement tool from the forum for £10! And yes, in summer I have plenty of windows open and just let it run in the background to extract bathrooms and ventilate the basement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexphd1 Posted June 2, 2019 Share Posted June 2, 2019 (edited) i think i would be shopping around! You can get roof vents, wall and underside soffit vents. they are not ugly but i would try and not have them next to your front door. here a buildhub thread with more detail Edited June 2, 2019 by Alexphd1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bitpipe Posted June 2, 2019 Share Posted June 2, 2019 5 minutes ago, eandg said: They were for design, supply and commission (but not install) with separate maintenance agreements. Install quoted as between 1.5-3k (the higher end advised it'd be daft to get them to install it for that cost). Commission involved turning it on. That was about it. About 18 months later I got round to balancing it just to get the BR sign off - took a few hours of running around. Can't say I noticed any difference. Maintenance involves looking at the filters every month or so and if they're dirty - giving them a good hoover. Replace them every 6 months or more frequently depending on how soiled they're getting. I bulk bought a load off ebay and they work fine. Once year, I lug the heat exchanger out and wash it in the bath with the shower. Leave to dry, quick blast with the hairdryer and back in it goes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eandg Posted June 2, 2019 Author Share Posted June 2, 2019 Just now, Bitpipe said: Commission involved turning it on. That was about it. About 18 months later I got round to balancing it just to get the BR sign off - took a few hours of running around. Can't say I noticed any difference. Maintenance involves looking at the filters every month or so and if they're dirty - giving them a good hoover. Replace them every 6 months or more frequently depending on how soiled they're getting. I bulk bought a load off ebay and they work fine. Once year, I lug the heat exchanger out and wash it in the bath with the shower. Leave to dry, quick blast with the hairdryer and back in it goes. So no need for the maintenance contract? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted June 2, 2019 Share Posted June 2, 2019 55 minutes ago, eandg said: So no need for the maintenance contract? Why would anyone have a maintenance contract for an MVHR? Maintenance is designed to be by the consumer, just a matter of cleaning/replacing the filters every 4 to 6 months, which is less challenging than emptying a vacuum cleaner and replacing/cleaning the filters in that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Declan52 Posted June 2, 2019 Share Posted June 2, 2019 They are designed so the filters are a 2 min job to remove and clean or replace. Even the removal and cleaning of the heat exchanger is an hour at most because you have to dry it off. https://www.bpcventilation.com/ Have a look at these guys and send them your plans for a price. A maintenance contract is definitely some one taking the piss. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LA3222 Posted June 3, 2019 Share Posted June 3, 2019 It may be useful if members could caveat *their* costs with when they purchased and total floor space as both these affect the prices mentioned. @Bitpipe you mention approx £3k for what sounds like a very large house (probably larger than my own) - I have had a quote back from the usual suspect that everyone seems to use and it came in at £4k for a 270m2 build. This was supply only of MVHR unit and ducting along with the basic vents etc which is more than I expected as I had been reading through the MVHR threads and coming up with a price of a couple of k in my head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oz07 Posted June 3, 2019 Share Posted June 3, 2019 @JSHarris did you buy an all singing unit because you were unsure about heating demand? In hindsight could you make do with a basic model? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted June 3, 2019 Share Posted June 3, 2019 20 minutes ago, Oz07 said: @JSHarris did you buy an all singing unit because you were unsure about heating demand? In hindsight could you make do with a basic model? Not heating, but cooling. It was very much a last minute change of plan, resulting from the weather when we were doing the ground works. After we'd excavated out the hollow that our house sits in, we realised that it was likely to get a bit warm, as we had temperatures in the high 30's when the guys were building the big retaining wall. I'd originally planned to fit a standard MVHR, but spotted the Genvex, with it's cooling capability, and decided to splash out on it. I'm glad we did, as it helps keep the house cool, although with hindsight it would have been cheaper and more effective if I'd opted to just fit a standard MVHR and add a split air con unit, with the indoor unit high in our central entrance hall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bitpipe Posted June 3, 2019 Share Posted June 3, 2019 2 hours ago, LA3222 said: It may be useful if members could caveat *their* costs with when they purchased and total floor space as both these affect the prices mentioned. @Bitpipe you mention approx £3k for what sounds like a very large house (probably larger than my own) - I have had a quote back from the usual suspect that everyone seems to use and it came in at £4k for a 270m2 build. This was supply only of MVHR unit and ducting along with the basic vents etc which is more than I expected as I had been reading through the MVHR threads and coming up with a price of a couple of k in my head. Looking back at my quotes, was a bit more that - £2k for ducts & fittings and same for unit, but this was 2015 so prices will have shifted - although I see the unit on sale for £1700 ex vat from BPC (https://www.bpcventilation.com/vent-axia-kinetic-highflow-r-h) again, that unit would likely be oversized for your house. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oz07 Posted June 3, 2019 Share Posted June 3, 2019 Ive looked at that BPC for next project. The ducting kits seem to cost as much as the units. Does summer bypass mean that heat will not be extracted from exhaust air if hotter than intake? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ragg987 Posted June 3, 2019 Share Posted June 3, 2019 5 minutes ago, Oz07 said: Does summer bypass mean that heat will not be extracted from exhaust air if hotter than intake? Sort of. With our unit the bypass setting can be adjusted to average daily temperature. I have set it to 12C. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oz07 Posted June 3, 2019 Share Posted June 3, 2019 Theres a lot of different features on these units. Some have inbuilt humidity sensor others can buy seperate? Do you have to allow any kind of other first fix electrics for these i.e. wires to plenium locations or can everything electric wise be contained where the unit is? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted June 3, 2019 Share Posted June 3, 2019 14 minutes ago, Oz07 said: Ive looked at that BPC for next project. The ducting kits seem to cost as much as the units. Does summer bypass mean that heat will not be extracted from exhaust air if hotter than intake? The ducting kit was twice the cost of our ebay mvhr unit. In the case of ours, a Kingspam / Mitusbishi unit, the bypass diverts the exhaust air around the heat exchanger core. So like that, supply air will not be heated by the exhaust air, so will come into the house at outside temperature. So for example today it's 21 degrees in the house, but only 15 outside so the cooler air coming in will cool the house a little. I will eventually connect the control for that to a room thermostat in a bedroom, so if the bedrooms start getting too hot it will automatically turn summer bypass on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexphd1 Posted June 4, 2019 Share Posted June 4, 2019 I got a small scare at the ducting cost, it adds up! I have went down a similar route to dave. i bought a job lot 5x xpleiar mvhr units off fleebay for £900, with the plan of 2 in my parents and 2 installed in my build with 1 spare for parts later down the line. I started buying from BPC but changed to blauberg (trade account) as they where a good bit cheaper (50m roll of 75 mvhr ducting with anti static/coating £82 plus vat compared to £116 plus vat from bpc). The down side i will need to do my own ventilation calculations. 480m2 build ducting (decent spec ie stainless external vent plus silencers etc) came to approx £2000 inc vat. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kay Pee Posted June 12, 2019 Share Posted June 12, 2019 On 04/06/2019 at 13:15, Alexphd1 said: I got a small scare at the ducting cost, it adds up! I have went down a similar route to dave. i bought a job lot 5x xpleiar mvhr units off fleebay for £900, with the plan of 2 in my parents and 2 installed in my build with 1 spare for parts later down the line. I started buying from BPC but changed to blauberg (trade account) as they where a good bit cheaper (50m roll of 75 mvhr ducting with anti static/coating £82 plus vat compared to £116 plus vat from bpc). The down side i will need to do my own ventilation calculations. 480m2 build ducting (decent spec ie stainless external vent plus silencers etc) came to approx £2000 inc vat. Interesting. I've been looking at BPC, and really like the specs of the Blauberg units - how difficult was it to get a trade account? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexphd1 Posted June 12, 2019 Share Posted June 12, 2019 I still have connections to a plumbing business so i played on this but it was very straight forward. If you have a sparkie or plumber maybe then can help you out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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