How to blow and how to extract air in indoor spaces

Blowing - Ventilation through natural intake and mechanical extraction

The most commonly used ventilation system today, also employed during the last three decades for housing ventilation, is a system with natural air intake and mechanical extraction. Its operation is based on blowing clean air from the facade through adjustable grills. Extraction is carried out with a mechanical extractor located on the roof that removes contaminated air from the kitchen and bathrooms through a vertical duct it connects to. Among its advantages, it can be highlighted that the air flows introduced are guaranteed and require minimal maintenance.

• Passive self-regulating admission grills. This mechanism is activated by the pressure exerted by the wind on the facade, reducing over-ventilation in case of strong winds.

• Active self-regulating admission grills. They limit excess ventilation due to wind pressure on the facade and regulate the air flow that should be blown depending on a predetermined demand.

Within this system, significant energy savings can be obtained by installing an intelligent extractor that has several configurable connection points. These points connect to all rooms through individual ducts. You can choose which type of sensor to install for each room and what the blown flow will be.

Blowing - Ventilation through mechanical air intake and mechanical extraction

Centralized mechanical intake and centralized mechanical extraction

This system has a network of ducts distributed throughout the house. Because air is extracted and introduced centrally, the flows are equal, so the system operates in a balanced manner. The entire system can be unified into a heat recovery unit composed of a heat exchanger, air filters, a fan for injection and another for extraction. The cold outside air is pre-warmed by exchange when crossing with the air that is extracted from the inside without mixing, significantly reducing the heating load caused by the ventilation of the interior rooms. Due to its centralized operation, ventilation is permanent in all rooms, regardless of their occupancy or the quality of the air inside.

Decentralized mechanical intake and centralized mechanical extraction

This system has various decentralized mechanical intake units without the need for ducts, which are physically separated from a centralized extraction unit. The air intake units must be on the facade wall and can be independent or integrated within a fan-coil or radiator. To achieve high energy efficiency, the system can be regulated by installing CO2 sensors in the rooms with external air supply.

Decentralized mechanical intake and decentralized mechanical extraction

Another variant of the centralized mechanical ventilation is decentralized ventilation with heat recovery. Each ventilation unit consisting of two fans and a heat recovery unit is installed on the facade wall of each of the habitable spaces. In the case of installation in living rooms and bedrooms, the extraction from the wet areas must be done with special care: the air intake for the bathroom must be anticipated, since this air will not be obtained through the living areas. The extraction for wet areas will be reduced to a minimum flow since it is unnecessary to calculate the extraction flow for the living room and bedrooms.