Proper ventilation plays a vital role in creating a safe comfortable living environment in your home. When functioning effectively, ventilation maintains high air quality in your home while removing any excess moisture to ensure the air inside is not stale or damp which could lead to mould. Good ventilation can also help with the reduction of airborne contaminants.
When it comes to building your new home, it’s therefore vitally important that you take into consideration opportunities to improve overall ventilation.
Here at Vogue Homes we are a trusted member of the community. We are committed to helping our clients create a healthy sustainable environment inside their homes. We’ve put together this guide to help you understand more about ventilation and the few steps you can take to create an overall healthy environment.
Know Your Site
When designing your home it’s important that you take into consideration any natural factors affecting your site. This includes environmental factors such as the position of the sunrise and sunset, and the general patterns of seasonal winds.
Having a good understanding of these factors will enable you to select the best position to place features such as doors and windows, allowing you to enjoy natural sunlight and unrestricted breeze paths.
This is also where working with a reputable builder makes all the difference. With years of valuable experience behind them, they can advise you on how to best orient your site to take advantage of prevailing breezes at your site and thereby optimising natural ventilation throughout the day.
Flooring Considerations
You may not think that flooring can contribute to the overall quality of air you breathe at home, but it can actually play a big role in indoor air quality.
While carpets keep a home warm and have a soft surface, if not cared for properly they can also harbor allergens, dust, bacteria, and other pollutants that can affect indoor air quality and cause health problems.
As such, make sure you consider all available flooring options, avoid putting carpets in areas that have high usage, and vacuum any carpeted areas regularly in order to minimise the presence of any contaminants that may affect air quality.
Practical Doors and Windows
This might seem like a basic step, but if doors and windows are not practical and easy to reach, they simply will be used less frequently. Additionally the design and size of openings can affect airflow patterns and how air movement is directed or deflected.
It’s therefore important that such features are large and easy to use, and the appropriate protection such as security / fly screens have been installed, so that they can be effectively used.
Opening doors and windows regularly can air out your house and replace stale indoor air with fresh outdoor air, getting rid of any excess moisture.
Install Extractor Fans
Extractor fans are a specialised ventilation system that services particular areas in your home.
These fans are of particular benefit in areas where moisture and stale air can build up much faster such as in kitchens, laundries and bathrooms. You should always make sure vital exhaust fans, such as over your kitchen stove, are externally ducted, meaning that they take the air outside your home. A lot of builders do not offer this to their clients, which means all the air is disbursed through the roof cavity.
It’s critical that these systems are factored into the design phase of your construction, so that they can provide the appropriate protection to any affected areas.
Home Ventilation System
A well-designed and correctly installed home ventilation system provides great ventilation for your home regardless of the weather conditions outside. Such systems can replace stale air in your home with fresh, dry air to create a healthier, drier and warmer living environment for your family.
Make sure that you regularly maintain your system, otherwise if filters are not regularly cleaned this can affect the quality of the air that’s been circulated.
Home ventilation is important to maintain comfort, health, and the indoor air quality in your home.
Without proper ventilation, air in the home can become stagnant, contaminants can exist at higher concentrations, and moisture levels can rise, leading to an overall unhealthy environment.
Fortunately, when consideration is given to your new home’s ventilation requirements during the building process, you can ensure that you have minimised the risks to you and your family that a poorly ventilated home poses. Make sure that you gain a good understanding of all the environmental factors affecting your site, match a flooring option that best suits its intended use, and design large and easy to use doors and windows. You should also consider installing a regularly maintained home ventilation system to service your entire home, and extractor fans for areas where moisture and stale air can build up much faster.
If you have any further questions on improving ventilation in your home, look no further than us here at Vogue Homes. We have 38+ years in the industry and have built up the expertise to effectively incorporate a range of ventilation solutions into our building designs.
We can help you maximise the natural conditions affecting your home and install any features that can provide you with additional protection.
For any of your home building needs, why not contact us today.
