10 ms·

Its all very well using environmental energy sources to heat and cool a building, but very little attention is given over to clearing the air. Besides the pollu

Its all very well using environmental energy sources to heat and cool a building, but very little attention is given over to clearing the air. Besides the pollutants from cleaning products and product breakdown, CO2 levels inside a building can have a stimulating effect on the body, which kind of destroys the purpose of a relaxation of a home.

surfmike 5y ago
The passive house standard requires mechnical ventilation using heat exchangers to minimize energy loss. http://tepperarchitects.com/?p=522 http://tepperarchitects.com/?p=522
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
  Yeah but what is a healthy Air Changes per Hour (ACH)? The building regs here in the UK are a bit all over the place, I had to direct some questions to the local authority planning dept because their legislation was like a poorly written computer program and they couldnt answer the questions. The legislation doesnt quantify the risks properly imo, at least here in the UK.
  - grey-area 5y ago
    This article is about passive houses, which have very good ventilation (they have to, because the building is hermetically sealed apart from the HVAC). So the air quality is much better than normal homes without a dedicated ventilation system.
  - jakewins 5y ago
    The houses I’ve seen control the exchange rate with air quality sensors - so, if you are having a party, the ventilation speeds up, and when the house is empty it slows down. That said, in the US the ACH rate is recommended at 0.35 by ASHRAE, see https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/how-much-ventilation-do-i-need-my-home-improve-indoor-air-quality https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/how-much-ventilat...
    - Terry_Roll 5y ago
      Yeah but its not measuring the quality of the air. Houses are just passive particulate collecting devices, ie particulates travelling on the air outside, move into the house, meet a stationary or slower moving body of air, lose momentum and velocity and thus succumbs to the effects of gravity and hits a surface. Considering woman have traditionally been the one's cleaning the house for the living abode for hundreds of years, why havent they come up with something better to filter the air inside a property seeing as there is this push to get females into STEM?
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  There was a big Thing in the neighbourhood I live in (built ~15 years ago) where this kind of two-way ventilation system did not work correctly; it did not have the right capacity on the one hand, and was too loud on the other (meaning people shut it off). But they're so well insulated that that was not an option. My house has a one-way ventilation system, air is sucked in through vents in the windows. We keep it at the lowest setting though, again because of noise, but that seems to be all right for us.
goodpoint 5y ago
> CO2 levels inside a building can have a stimulating effect on the body, which kind of destroys the purpose of a relaxation of a home Citation really needed.
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
  You know where google scholar, pubmed and wiki is? Or do you want to get into a discussion about under-carboxylation and dietary intake of nutrients, and CO2 blood saturation levels? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercapnia#Tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercapnia#Tolerance
  - goodpoint 5y ago
    > You know where google scholar, pubmed and wiki is? I know them quite well but this is a conversation on HN and people should back their claims here.
    - Terry_Roll 5y ago
      Well you can see that breathing is stimulated with rising CO2 levels, everyone knows this whether they have exercised or held a non-permeable bag over their head. Its interesting because Climate Change aka rising CO2 levels will stimulate the population globally which then presents a new area of concern for authorities who like to keep control of a population. Hadnt thought of that until now!
      - goodpoint 5y ago
        You are throwing around the word "stimulating" in a very misleading way. If don't have good circulation in your home your respiration rate is going up by an unnoticeable amount. The idea that this prevents "relaxation" is absurd. Equally absurd to claim "presents a new area of concern for authorities who like to keep control of a population". If anything it's the very opposite, where *high* levels of CO2 *decrease* attention and causes drowsiness. - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41526-019-0071-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41526-019-0071-6 - Karnauskas, K. B., et al. (2020) Fossil fuel combustion is driving indoor CO2 toward levels harmful to human cognition. GeoHealth. doi.org/10.1029/2019GH000237. - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200421090556.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200421090556.h...

surfmike 5y ago

The passive house standard requires mechnical ventilation using heat exchangers to minimize energy loss. http://tepperarchitects.com/?p=522 http://tepperarchitects.com/?p=522

Terry_Roll 5y ago
Yeah but what is a healthy Air Changes per Hour (ACH)? The building regs here in the UK are a bit all over the place, I had to direct some questions to the local authority planning dept because their legislation was like a poorly written computer program and they couldnt answer the questions. The legislation doesnt quantify the risks properly imo, at least here in the UK.
- grey-area 5y ago
  This article is about passive houses, which have very good ventilation (they have to, because the building is hermetically sealed apart from the HVAC). So the air quality is much better than normal homes without a dedicated ventilation system.
- jakewins 5y ago
  The houses I’ve seen control the exchange rate with air quality sensors - so, if you are having a party, the ventilation speeds up, and when the house is empty it slows down. That said, in the US the ACH rate is recommended at 0.35 by ASHRAE, see https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/how-much-ventilation-do-i-need-my-home-improve-indoor-air-quality https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/how-much-ventilat...
  - Terry_Roll 5y ago
    Yeah but its not measuring the quality of the air. Houses are just passive particulate collecting devices, ie particulates travelling on the air outside, move into the house, meet a stationary or slower moving body of air, lose momentum and velocity and thus succumbs to the effects of gravity and hits a surface. Considering woman have traditionally been the one's cleaning the house for the living abode for hundreds of years, why havent they come up with something better to filter the air inside a property seeing as there is this push to get females into STEM?
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
There was a big Thing in the neighbourhood I live in (built ~15 years ago) where this kind of two-way ventilation system did not work correctly; it did not have the right capacity on the one hand, and was too loud on the other (meaning people shut it off). But they're so well insulated that that was not an option. My house has a one-way ventilation system, air is sucked in through vents in the windows. We keep it at the lowest setting though, again because of noise, but that seems to be all right for us.

goodpoint 5y ago

> CO2 levels inside a building can have a stimulating effect on the body, which kind of destroys the purpose of a relaxation of a home Citation really needed.

Terry_Roll 5y ago
You know where google scholar, pubmed and wiki is? Or do you want to get into a discussion about under-carboxylation and dietary intake of nutrients, and CO2 blood saturation levels? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercapnia#Tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercapnia#Tolerance
- goodpoint 5y ago
  > You know where google scholar, pubmed and wiki is? I know them quite well but this is a conversation on HN and people should back their claims here.
  - Terry_Roll 5y ago
    Well you can see that breathing is stimulated with rising CO2 levels, everyone knows this whether they have exercised or held a non-permeable bag over their head. Its interesting because Climate Change aka rising CO2 levels will stimulate the population globally which then presents a new area of concern for authorities who like to keep control of a population. Hadnt thought of that until now!
    - goodpoint 5y ago
      You are throwing around the word "stimulating" in a very misleading way. If don't have good circulation in your home your respiration rate is going up by an unnoticeable amount. The idea that this prevents "relaxation" is absurd. Equally absurd to claim "presents a new area of concern for authorities who like to keep control of a population". If anything it's the very opposite, where *high* levels of CO2 *decrease* attention and causes drowsiness. - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41526-019-0071-6 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41526-019-0071-6 - Karnauskas, K. B., et al. (2020) Fossil fuel combustion is driving indoor CO2 toward levels harmful to human cognition. GeoHealth. doi.org/10.1029/2019GH000237. - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200421090556.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200421090556.h...