How to ventilate a house

[Bubu]

When I was starting out in building construction I notice that there is no focus on ventilating the house naturally. Engineers would normally place a roof vent on the soffit but none in the apex. every single house I saw have the same ventilation. As we are discussing natural houses here https://projectavalon.net/forum4/show...autiful-images
I decided to contribute on ventilating the house. As I was looking on the net for something to copy and paste I realize that its not only in the Philippines that natural convection is not taken advantage. I found only two that discuss it so I am posting it as a new thread.

there are three laws of nature involve "hot air rises" : "air occupies empty space" and " "ejector effect" in building construction called "chimney effect"

So the trick is simple place a vent at the lowest part of the building and at the top most part of the building. ceilings should have slopes rather than horizontal. and if you wish you can place a chimney to take advantage of ejector effect. the velocity of air that is passing at the top opening of the chimney will suck air from below.



https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/natural-ventilation

http://www.yourhome.gov.au/passive-d...assive-cooling

[eagle0027]

Learned a lot about your subject building my own home.
If building within a reginal district ..as i did...total interior of home is covered in plastic vapor barrier.There is an air exchange formula that must be conformed to.In my case it was as simple and stupid as a timer on the wall to turn on the bathroom fan.The attic area was the only area that had natural ventelation between sofets and vents in the highest area at the peak on the ends of walls at the roof.
The crazy part of totally covering the interier of the home with plastic is that witout sealing it to the window frames all electrical boxes etc there is warm air escaping to cold...makes condensation...rotton window skylight frames.
When asking the building inspector why that wasnt manditory to be a sealed point..his reply was...well..used to be but the drywall guys always cut it with their handy little buzz tool.So rotton window frames are common.
This prob really sunk in as my framming was soaked from steady rain for weeks before the roof went on so still very damp when sheeted insulation then vapor barrier .Had interior heat on overnight ..back working on it in the morning with pools of water on the floor near the exterior walls in 2 areas.Trying for hrs to figure out where the roof was leaking.....turned out all it was was very small pinholes in the plastic.It was really hard to believe that such a small hole... cold air meeting warm could cause that much moisture...but in the right conditiond ...it does.The wall areas later covered in drywall and would never be a problem...BUT...obviously around windows doors etc over time warm air meeting cold ....condensation ...rot.
Long gone are the days of using your shiplap from concrete forming to angle sheet your home aleviating the prob now as well with regard to having to strap exterior plywood sheeting for apparently more air flow.Totally nuts as the only air flow is the small horazontal space between the plywood sheets anyway.
Unless of course one builds outside of reginal districts one must comply with some pretty illogical building code.
Ed

[Bubu]

I realize that in very cold places ventilating is problematic and this natural ventilating system might not be a very good idea because putting the exhaust on the top most means that the hottest air in the room is expelled. That would be a lost of energy for home heating. It would be best to employ a force ventilating system located at the lowest and coldest space in the house the intake of fresh air should be farthest from the exhaust preferably at the back of heating unit. Also there is a very efficient way of heating the house using wood. but that would be another thread.

the reason I suggest the incoming air be at the back of the heater is as discuss above, "condensation". And the fact that the rate of heat transfer is directly proportional to the differential temperature. The incoming air should hit the heating unit directly.

[Bo Atkinson]

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Trade-offs of pros and cons
yielded to lowest costs of
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like do it yourself chess, but
I was much older by then,
and my home is OK as-is.

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