Another ventilation thread

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networkn

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#208040 24-Jan-2017 14:03

So, we have a 10 year old house in Auckland.

It has 5 bedrooms, with 1 on the bottom floor which already has a heat pump and 2 of the others which include the master bedroom and one of the largest bedrooms down the other end of the house which has one as well.

There is a bedroom which will house my 4-year-old and another room which is my wifes (small) office. They share a common wall between them.

Those two rooms are directly over our lounge and living areas which have no cooling but have a Pellet fire.

We are trying to find a cost-effective way to cool the two rooms upstairs, and potentially maybe some cooler air into the living area.

The upstairs ceiling has room (crawl space) above it, the downstairs does not.

I am against HRV as a company (sales tactics) but unsure on what systems are effective in our situation.

The two rooms to cool/heat primarily are 2 x 4m and 3 x 4m.

timmmay

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#1708743 24-Jan-2017 14:13

I'm confused Ted.

"It has 5 bedrooms, with 1 on the bottom floor which already has a heat pump and 2 of the others which include the master bedroom and one of the largest bedrooms down the other end of the house which has one as well. "

The two other rooms share one heat pump? Or you have two other heat pumps for those rooms?

"Those two rooms". Presume this refers to the paragraph / sentence above? Shouldn't they be the same paragraph? And the next one refers to the same rooms?

"We are trying to find a cost-effective way to cool the two rooms upstairs, and potentially maybe some cooler air into the living area."

Around "potentially / maybe" this gets confusing. Are you trying to bring air into those rooms from a living area that's already cool, or do you want to cool the living area as well? Is there a heat pump in this area, or are you thinking of adding on? Maybe bringing air in from another area.

Does opening windows work to cool rooms? Is this not effective enough? What about a fan to make the room feel cooler? What have you tried already?

Perhaps some clarification is required, maybe with a diagram or two.

Moving heated or chilled air through a roof space isn't meant to be very effective due to heat loss / gain. You'd need a lot of volume of air, which means a larger heat pump in the source room.

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#1708773 24-Jan-2017 15:19

Some of the HRV-esque systems have a "summer mode", which effectively just use a fan to suck air from outside into the house. I don't have one installed, but use the similar strategy of opening the bedroom windows and turning on extractor fans in the bathrooms, to suck cooler air through the house. The more eco-friendly version of that strategy is just to open windows on opposite sides of the house to create cross ventilation... Apparently opening a window and aiming a desk fan at it is also quite effective.

Beyond the various ways of getting air from outdoors into the rooms, I expect you'd be looking at another heat pump or other system that could chill the air, installed directly in the room or ducted from elsewhere. Unfortunately I don't have anything specific I can recommend.

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networkn

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#1708778 24-Jan-2017 15:32

Let me try again.

We have a 5 Bedroom House. We have 1 Bedroom downstairs. It has a Heat Pump.

Upstairs there are 4 bedrooms. The master and my sons room are at opposite ends of that upper level, each has it's own heatpump. My wifes office is is next to our Master bedroom and there is a small and a large shared wall. Next to that sharing a wall with my wifes office is my daughters room.

My wife and Daughter and swapping rooms.

We would like to find a cost effective cooling(primarily) and heating (less important) solution to cool my daughters room and wifes office.

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#1708792 24-Jan-2017 15:40

Ventilation will hep a bit but if you need cooling you are likely wanting air conditioning.

Are they both on the same face (ie nourth or south)? You could put a split air conditioner in with 2 indoor units. Alterntively 2 splits would also work. You're looking at around $5k-$6k all up.

timmmay

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#1708846 24-Jan-2017 16:24

networkn:

We would like to find a cost effective cooling(primarily) and heating (less important) solution to cool my daughters room and wifes office.

I guess opening a window or using a fan hasn't worked? What else have you considered or tried to solve the problem?

networkn

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#1708852 24-Jan-2017 16:26

timmmay:

networkn:

We would like to find a cost effective cooling(primarily) and heating (less important) solution to cool my daughters room and wifes office.

I guess opening a window or using a fan hasn't worked? What else have you considered or tried to solve the problem?

Yeah, window with a fan pointing outward is the most effective but not really suitable for various reasons.

Open windows help, but not enough.

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#1708859 24-Jan-2017 16:33

Apart from opening windows and using either stack or cross ventilation, another heat pump is likely you best option. Maybe also look into the multi unit ones where you can run multiple indoor units off a single outdoor compressor.?