Ventilation for condominium?
My stepson and his fiancé just moved into a 660 sq. ft. condo in San Diego, not far from the airport and directly in front of a rail line. The door leading out to the patio doesn’t seal at all at the bottom, letting in noise as though a window is wide open, and the door to the hallway is poorly sealed as well, letting in all sorts of noise from neighbors etc.
I got thinking about sealing to reduce noise, then wondered about ventilation. I believe their unit has a heat pump, but I don’t know if it has any fresh air input.
They also have a gas oven, and the range hood is an over-the-range microwave. Not good.
I wouldn’t want to help them seal the place up tight only to end up causing air quality issues.
Any advice? Do these condo units usually have a fresh air source?
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Replies
Lance,
To find out whether your condo has any ventilation equipment, you have to look.
Typically, most American homes have a bathroom exhaust fan that exhausts air to the exterior of the home. This is a type of ventilation equipment. Operating the bathroom exhaust fan for 24 hours a day would definitely ventilate your condo (maybe too much -- but that's another question). You can buy and install a 24-hour timer to control your bathroom exhaust fan if you want -- the timer can be adjusted to come on for a certain number of hours per day.
Typically, most American kitchens have a range hood that exhausts air to the exterior of the building. Your kitchen many have such a fan, or it may not. An older home sometimes has a (mostly useless) recirculating fan that just moves air around in a circle. Operating a range hood fan that exhausts to the exterior will also help ventilate your apartment -- again, perhaps too much.
If you hire a home performance contractor or a weatherization contractor to perform air sealing work at your condo, that contractor should pay attention to air quality issues, and should advise you on whether your unit needs additional mechanical ventilation.
Lance,
Relying on exhaust only ventilation in a Condo often means you end up drawing the replacement air from neighbouring units, or the hallway. If you add a ventilation system, make sure it is a balanced one with a good source of supply air.
Does San Diego have any noise mitigation programs for people who live next to the airport and/or rail line?
Thanks for your input, everyone.
Martin, as you suggested, the over the range microwave is set up to recirculate only, no exhaust. With a full size gas range is this even legal? It's a tiny 660 sqft condo so I'd imagine the combustion byproduct concentrations would be far higher than if that same range was used in an average house.
Malcolm, this is my main concern with setting a timer on the bath fan. The two obvious "fresh" air sources are the patio door (outdoor air) and under the entrance door (hallway). If we seal up those two spots to keep out noise and bugs, who knows where the air will come from?
Steve, this is worth looking into, thanks!
Lance,
For more information on these issues, see these three articles:
"Designing a Good Ventilation System"
"Revisiting Ventilation"
"Ensuring Fresh Air in Bedrooms"
Whenever dealing with a condo the question of whether the association would allow making additional wall penetrations for supply & exhaust ports for the ventilation system comes up. Assuming it's allowed at all there are likely to be restrictions on how many, where and what type of exterior cap size/shape/color is allowed.
In San Diego the Panasonic FV-04VE1 single room HRVs work fine year round (unlike more freeze-prone regions.) A pair of them is probably sufficient for ventilating a 660' condo in San Diego, one set up for continuous ventilation at low cfm for the bathroom, another for the rest of the place (or bedroom) at a higher cfm.
Some over-the-range microwaves can be converted from recirculating to exterior exhaust. Whether or not there is a reasonable path for exhaust duct work, and whether or not they can get permission from condo to route duct work up thru the roof or out thru a wall are separate issues.
I was in a similar situation. In the end, I decided to change from a gas range to electric, and I also upgraded two bath fans and their controls. It's a sub-optimal arrangement, but an improvement.
If you use your range at all, an externally vented vent fan and a decent hood design are highly desirable.
Without a blower door test we can only guess if this condo needs more ventilation or not.
If we assume this condo was built more than a few years ago by a production builder my guess it leaks like sieve and short of pulling down the drywall you will never get it tight enough to justify a HRV.
I say calk the snot of the place then do a blower door test. If by some miracle you get a reading under 1.5 then worry about ventilation.
Walta