One thing that everybody wants is clean, fresh air and the best way to do that in the home is to install ventilation.  Here are our hints and tips to help you choose the right ventilation system for you.

Types of Ventilation Systems

When it comes to ventilation for your home, there are several types that you can choose from.  Some of the most popular include:

• Exhaust fans – these are designed to draw air through the fan and vent it to the outside of the home or to alternatively filter it and return it to the room.  They are popular for use in kitchens, bathrooms and laundries as they can remove moisture from the air as well as odours and stale air.
  
• Rangehoods – range hoods are used in the kitchen to vent away smells, grease, cooking odours, steam and the like.  They are mounted over the stovetop and vent to outside or filter the air before returning it to the room.
  
• Opening the window – perhaps the simplest type of ventilation, this just means opening the window in the desired room to let fresh air come in!  By opening windows opposite each other (cross ventilation), you can get fresh air in and flush out stale, old air at the same time.
  
• Night flush ventilation – this works by opening windows at night or turning on fans in order to draw the cooler night air into the home, naturally cooling the home while giving it fresh air. Opening high windows also allows stale, hot air to escape during the night, as hot air rises.
  
• Solar ventilation – this is a relatively new concept that uses the solar energy in the roof to operate a fan that draws in fresh air and filters it before delivering it into the home.  Filtering the air removes all contaminants and makes it fresh and healthy (and ideal for allergy or asthma sufferers!).  The air can be warmed during winter.  At the same time that fresh air is being delivered, stale air is being drawn out of the home.

Getting the Right Ventilation System

When choosing a ventilation system, there are several questions that you need to answer in order to ensure that you get the right one for you.  The first question is what you actually need the ventilation system to do.  Do you want to get more fresh air into the home during the day or do you want a powerful system that will completely replace all the air in your home?  Do you need to remove moisture and odours?  Once you have answered this, you can then decide how much work you want to put into operating your home’s ventilation.  Operating the system can be as simple as flicking a switch or pressing a button or even completely automating it, or it can involve you going around and manually opening doors and windows depending on the conditions and the results that you are hoping to achieve.  Of course, your budget will also play a large role in the type of ventilation system that you choose.  Ventilation systems can be free (you needed windows anyway and it doesn’t cost anything to open them!), cheap (exhaust fans), middle of the range (rangehoods and roof mounted extractors), or top of the range (roof mounted ventilation systems).

Visit the hipages directory to find a ventilation professional in your local area.