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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Balers,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>(being new to this forum, I've added a short
background to my SB interest/experience after my
question)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Q: Have any forum members experience with or
information on minimum air-change rate (ac) for SB houses?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Reason for asking this: </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>For a passive house (PH), and even often said for a
low-energy house (LEH) too, it seems to be unavoidable to ventilate through
"balanced" ventilation (sorry, translated from Dutch/German - what I mean is
two-way mechanical ventilation with heat recuperation), as ventilation in
well-insulated air-tight houses becomes the single biggest heat loss. However,
a</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>part from avoiding the high investment costs,
there may be other reasons one want to achieve at least LEH standards (and if
possible PH standards) without BV. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Just for O2 renewal and save CO2 levels, 0.1-0.2
ac suffices, thus the remainder of the often advised minimum of 1 ac seems
to be needed primarily for keeping CO/NOx levels (gas cooking
etc.) safe and avoid moisture problems. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>With humidity-controlled fan extractors in kitchen
(area) and bathroom, dedicated 'wet zone' for drying laundry etc, and possibly
added moisture stocking capacity (e.g. adobe wall) in remaining 'wet
spots/spaces' (this beyond the capacity that the few cms of, preferably, earth
plaster already give you), I wonder if any additional permanent mechanical
ventilation (BV or otherwise) is needed in such a SB house to achieve LEH/PH
standards - even in a (theoratically) air-tight built one - to avoid
moisture problems?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Any information or suggestions
welcome!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Peter van Balen (my last name being, coincidently,
Dutch for bales...)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Living in France, I got interested in SB through
meeting Tom Rijven some years ago. Got a little bit of hands-on experience
through helping out (4 weeks) on Martin Oehlmann's building site (who I found
thanks to Herbert's announcement on the ASBN website) and as well as a 3-week
workshop led by Tom. Planned to start building our own SB house (infill bales on
edge) from Autumn 2006, after some more SB work experience and hopefully some
more insight in, amongst other things, ventilation & moisture issues in SB
building. I found this, very helpful, site through Kuba
(Wihan).</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>