On Fri, 14 Jan 2011 19:47:48 +0000, TheOldFellow
wrote:

I'm considering fitting one of these. Perhaps this one:
http://www.cvcdirect.co.uk/Whole%20H...ct-akorhe.html

Is there anyone with any experience of them? Are they any good? Or do
you really need to go the whole hog and spend thousands.

Not that one but we have had a similar whole house ventilator for the
last 20 years and it has been very useful. The heat recovery side (in
all these units) is a bit minimal as air has low mass - so don't
expect warm air to come out of the trickle vents, it might be a few
degrees above ambient but not much else. Motor life is about 5-10
years before the bearings fail. We built it in to a new build house -
retrofitting may not be as easy as the manufacturers claim.

It certainly makes the house environment fresher and the bathrooms dry
quite quickly. If unit has a cooker extraction hood option I would
not fit that - the extractor pipe will get coated in cooking oil and
pick up dust and fluff. Simply use a normal ceiling extractor vent
somewhere convenient in the kitchen area. We mounted our motor box on
a 2 inch thick slab of rubberised horsehair on a board in the attic
and it is for all practical purposes silent.

There are no perceptible cold draught unless you sit almost
immediately under an inlet vent in a corner in which case you might
just about detect the cool air descending.

Definitely something I would fit again.