Hi guys,
I recently moved to a new apartment (1.5 rooms) with my girlfriend. The place is pretty amazing, near Lausanne, awesome view, my own parking spot, reasonable price.
The only issue that I am facing right now is that the building has a funky ventilation system. It's probably against the nasty mould problem Swiss buildings are usually having trouble with. The issue with this is that it pumps rather cold air in the room about 2h in the morning and 2h in the evening. The whole apartment is pretty air tight, so whenever this additional pressure comes in, air is forced through the windows and they get quite whistly. If I slightly open one window, it goes away, but there is still some serious draft.
All in all, apart from being annoying, I think it can pose serious health issues in the long run.
What would you recommend me to do? I don't think there is anything I could do in the apartment. Should I try to contact the administration to reduce the ventilation for my apartment or should I try to block the vent (I could not find it yet)?
Thanks a lot!
Just contact your building administration person and ask them about it.
Don't block the vent - it might cause problems for your neighbours or damage the ventilation system in some way.
Thanks for the reply. You are right, I should probably not block anything without asking. But I don't see too many solutions for this, do you? :-(
Did anyone have similar issues? I expect such ventilation systems to be in most new-ish buildings in Switzerland.
You need to adjust the window hinges slightly if possible and the whistle will stop.
What health issues are you concerned about?
Contrary to apparent popular belief across Europe, I'm yet to see any solid claims whatsoever of a draft alone having caused any adverse health effect.
Are you sure it's pumping air INTO the appartment? Normally the ventilation sucks stale air out and the fresh stuff is sucked in through the trickle-vents above the windows, below the front door, etc. So draughts will felt near the windows as the outside air is sucked in.
The ventilation vents are usually round plastic discs in the loo, bathroom, kitchen.... anywhere that gets damp and you can feel the air being pulled into them.
This extraction is often two-phase; mild most of the time, but increased a couple of times a day during peak cooking hours.
If it really is blowing into your appartment I'd ask the concierge to check it out first, might just be a problem with balancing the system, turning it down a bit, etc. If he can't sort it then contact the regie.
Oh, and the lower down the building you are, the stronger the pressure.
Because the machinery is usually in the basement and if you're nearer to the source of the 'sucking' it's stronger.
At least, that's how it was explained to me by the concierge when we had a similar type of problem in our last flat.
In our case it was a strong draught going into the ventilation vents, not out of them. The pressure was adjusted on the pump, no more draughts; but it was still fairly noisy during the two 'strong' periods.
Just checking as some people have a wierd air is heavier logic to account for differences within a few floors our unit is on tbe roof to use natural convection. Poor designed systems allow stronger weaker flows closer further away which is a pity.
Blonde yet not totally ga-ga, but I see what you mean!
It sounds like a girl I once knew ....... blowing, instead of sucking.
Don't use a straw with the milkshake then
Hi guys,
Sorry for the late reply.
So yes, I can confirm that it's sucking, not blowing. I am slowly getting used to it and I realised it's in the whole building and nothing much to do about it. We just bought some Silicon-based insulator cream thing (I'm a Computer Scientist, that's the best description I could come up with :-D ) and made sure there are no whistles around any of the windows.
We still did not get the time to talk to the admin, but it's in the plan.
Thanks for all the advice!
Hi,
I am getting back to you about my ventilation problem. I talked to the administrator of the building and she said that the system is "automatic" and there is nothing to be tuned...
The noise is driving me nuts ... It starts every morning at 7:15 and all the doors bang, and I feel a clear pressure difference in my ears. Good luck sleeping. Same for the evening shift - 19:00 - 21:30. I need to stay with the windows open and it's very drafty.
I managed to put a cap on the hood above the cooker where the air is being sucked. That increased the pressure in the bathroom, but everything is so much quieter now. I am not sure if I will get into trouble because of this ... The building ventilation system is probably crazy expensive.
What other solutions do I have? Move out? I don't want to think about the hell of finding another place and then moving all the stuff again ...
Thanks for your support!
Alex
Have you talked to any of your neighbors to see if they are experiencing the same problems? If not, I suggest you do. If it's bothering enough people, then perhaps the landlord would feel more compelled to do something about it.
For a few hundred francs they could put a 7 day timer in the system and make the weekend times later.
My friend had problems with no hot water at 7 am. After a study they found that most people were taking their shower at 5 am!
Do you have controls in each room? I work in an ultra-modern apartment building with an air circulation system and it has flow controls in each room as well as one master control in the bathroom or laundry where we can set the fan speed and ventilation settings.
Also, if the purpose is to flush the apartment with fresh air, then you need to give it somewhere to go.... So sealing everything 'air tight' might not be the right solution.
Our apartment is a 1.5 pieces thing. So the kitchen = living = bedroom.
There are no controls inside the apartment.
We could potentially talk to some neighbours, but I think most of them have rather big apartments. So this is not such a huge problem for the, as they can just open the kitchen window.