this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
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Thanks. I had a look at those articles. I'm not an expert, but they seem to talk about the temperature / lack of insulation in the attic, not about the air quality. They recommend putting the pipes inside the thermal enclosure.
I think you're still right though, better to get air from the outside.
I did some reading, and I found this article where they talk about lack of attic ventilation being a bad thing. Overseas it seems to be a standard now. Think next step is to measure the attic as well to see if I need to ventilate that as well.
Another read about attic ventilation here
Oh that's a slightly different thing I think. It is referring to ventilating the attic with the outside. Not ventilating the attic with the living space which is what the DVS/HRV thing is. Ventilating the attic with the outside is generally a good thing for various reasons. I might have messed up the terminology. But I don't think attic ventilation between the attic and outside will solve your problem.
Yeah, definitely don't want air from the attic.
I read somewhere else that just a positive pressure system is not sufficient, you need a balanced one, especially in well insulated houses. Ie fresh air in, stale are out. If I install something I want it to be right.
That would mean a couple of thousand dollars.
Food for thought. Going to try with opening windows more often first and a small dehumidifier, especially when drying clothes.
Positive pressure is definitely not as good. But if you plan ahead you can always modify into a balanced system later. In my last house when I installed positive pressure I also added an additional vent in the soffit in case I wanted to turn it into a balanced system in the future. But the positive pressure solved the condensation problem so didn't end up upgrading to balanced. You could also do balanced without mechanical heat recovery.
Maybe as an experiment try blow a fan pointed out an open window and see if it makes any difference to the humidity?
Thanks again for all the tips, much appreciated! I learn more and more about it.
Yes, will try the fan.
What type of system did you install? Just a simple fan or a more sophisticated one? If you want to be ready for balanced I guess your fan needs to be ready as well?
I installed ducted air con and instead of having a separate system for ventilation, for cost effectiveness I routed it from the outside through the air con system. So the aircon pulled the air from both the return vent in the house (90%) and from the outside (10%). You only need a small amount of mechanical airflow from the outside to reduce moisture levels. And had another vent hole with cover on the soffit for future but not ducted into the air con.