How to properly ventilate an apartment during the heating season. Experts of the “Window Company of the Year 2017” Award recommend

Most apartment residents treat ventilation as an inevitable and routine procedure: it becomes stuffy - open the window; When the room was ventilated, I closed it. In this situation, as a rule, they focus only on their feelings. Meanwhile, this is the wrong approach, since an excess of carbon dioxide in the air is not immediately felt. How does a systematic lack of oxygen affect health? What mistakes are most often made when ventilating? What rules of room ventilation must be followed to create an optimal microclimate at home?

Medical reasons for low performance

For a modern person, the “average” level of well-being has become familiar - this is when, in the absence of any ailments, it is difficult to force yourself to overcome laziness and start doing something. In this state, in which many are permanently, some external stimuli are needed for everyday activities: coffee, a shower or your favorite food. Who has not now encountered such a problem as procrastination (constantly putting off important things)? Nowadays it is customary to explain it as banal laziness, but most often it is only a consequence of “average” health.

There are plenty of reasons for this “average” state - the accelerated pace of life, constant stress, digitalization and its inevitable companion - physical inactivity. Lack of physical activity among urban residents has been a problem since the days of television. In the Internet era, this problem has reached a new level, and after the lockdowns and quarantines of 2020, it has become a phenomenon on a planetary scale.

Stuffy indoors: short-term and long-term consequences

At the same time, few people remember that due to a sedentary lifestyle (which is harmful in itself), most of the time we breathe “waste” air, oversaturated with carbon dioxide and other respiration products. A simple example: if you do not ventilate a room at all throughout the day, then by evening the level of CO2 in it will be 20 times higher than the norm. Of course, in this situation, a full night’s rest is impossible, and exercise on a treadmill or exercise bike will only bring harm instead of benefit.

What happens in the body of a person who breathes “waste” air for a long time? When there is an “overdose” of carbon dioxide in the blood, CO2 begins to replace oxygen in the red blood cells. The breathing rate increases. O2 deficiency reduces the rate of oxidative processes, and toxins begin to accumulate in the blood at an accelerated rate.

Such an experiment on oneself leads to a natural result - loss of performance, headaches, lethargy, drowsiness, and a depressed psychological state.

In the long term, staying in a closed, poorly ventilated room for a long time is a direct path to chronic diseases.

Four reasons to ventilate more often

• The first and most obvious reason is the need for O2 . When we open the windows, the “old” air leaves through the hoods, and its place is taken by fresh air, saturated with negative ions and oxygen;
• A good microclimate in the bedroom is an important condition for good and deep sleep, without a headache in the morning!
• The third reason is regulation of the room microclimate. Ventilating the apartment allows you to make the humidity and air temperature more comfortable.
• Removing unpleasant odors. A draft allows you to quickly remove foreign odors from the room - for example, burnt food, household chemicals, oil paint and others.

How to quickly ventilate a room from the smell of cigarettes

Intensive ventilation is the first remedy for eliminating cigarette odor. Close the door and with the fan or air conditioner on, open the window. They will create excess pressure in the room, displacing cigarette smoke outside.

A few minutes of ventilation in this situation is unlikely to be enough if the smell is persistent. However, the unpleasant odor can be neutralized by hanging towels soaked in a 3-6% vinegar solution. You can place bowls filled with vinegar around the apartment. Baking soda or cat litter absorb odors well. A room in which people constantly smoke should be regularly ventilated so that the smell does not absorb into the furniture and curtains.

Some more useful articles:

The best air purifiers for an apartment;

How to get rid of dampness in the house;

What humidity should be in the apartment.

Ventilation is one of the most important sanitary standards

Our body is not designed for a long stay indoors - throughout the entire evolutionary path, humans spent most of the daylight hours outdoors. For a city dweller, there is little choice in this regard: if you cannot change the situation, you need to adapt to it. Frequent and proper ventilation will help compensate for the acute lack of fresh air.

What is so difficult about ventilation, can it be done incorrectly? At first glance, everything is simple: it became stuffy - opened the window. In fact, everything is somewhat more complicated.

The usual method (opening a plastic window to the “micro-ventilation” position) does not provide complete air exchange. Even an open window is not enough - the “old” air simply does not have time to be replaced by “new” air. In winter, this method will only cool down the premises without giving the desired result.

How to quickly ventilate an apartment? Fast and effective ventilation can only be achieved with the help of a draft. It allows you to create powerful draft: in just 7-10 minutes the air in the room will be completely replaced with new one. At the same time, the temperature will not have time to drop dramatically: after the windows are closed, it will quickly return to its previous value (fresh air heats up faster than “exhaust” air). If creating a draft is problematic for any reason, it is better to open the window completely, leaving the room for ventilation.

Important! Plastic windows, unlike wooden ones, actually “clog” the apartment. In this case, only ventilation can help: without it, stuffiness and humidity quickly accumulate in the house.

Seven rules of ventilation

There are several simple rules for properly ventilating an apartment:

• If the temperature in adjacent rooms of the apartment is different, then when ventilating it is better to close the doors in them so that condensation does not form in cooler rooms;
• Before starting ventilation, it is recommended to turn off the heating radiator in the room (if technically possible). If this is not done, the apartment will quickly become cold;
• In winter, the desired frequency of ventilation is every 2 – 2.5 hours;
• The most important thing is to ventilate your apartment before going to bed. This is necessary not only to saturate the room air with oxygen, but also to regulate humidity;
• The optimal duration of through ventilation is 7-10 minutes. It is not advisable to keep the windows open longer, since during this time the air in the apartment has time to be completely renewed;
• In winter, when the windows are open, the humidity decreases. Therefore, at this time of year you need to take care of humidifying the air: use a humidifier, carry out wet cleaning more often;
• If there are 3 or more people in the room for a long time, then the room must be ventilated hourly.

How to ventilate an apartment in summer

After a long winter, the fragrant summer air is especially good. By opening the windows, we let into the apartment not only the aromas of flowers, but also the heat, flies and mosquitoes. Allergy sufferers have their own problem. Poplar fluff and pollen from flowering plants fly into rooms through open windows, causing an exacerbation of the disease. Summer will shine with new colors for you if you use a few simple tips before you start ventilating your apartment:

• In clear weather, asphalt and brick, heated during the day, will give off their heat for a long time. Therefore, in order to fill the rooms with coolness, you need to start airing no earlier than 2-3 hours after dusk.
• To prevent mosquitoes from interfering with your enjoyment of fresh air, it is recommended to equip your window with an anti-moxin mesh. It will slightly reduce the air circulation, but the annoying gnat will not prevent you from getting enough sleep.
• Try not to sleep in a draft. In the morning the temperature outside drops and you can get sick. You can open the opposite windows of the apartment before going to bed, and close the front door tightly at night, leaving only the bedroom window open.
• Postpone ventilation during a thunderstorm; this is especially dangerous for window sashes, which can be damaged by the wind. When the weather calms down, open the windows, filling the apartment with refreshing moisture and healing ozone.
• At dawn, close all windows, the balcony door, close the openings from the sun with curtains or blinds. In summer, light-colored curtains are preferred. By reflecting the sun's heat, they will help maintain the desired coolness until the evening.
• And finally, the best advice is to buy a ventilator and entrust it with taking care of the cleanliness and freshness of the air.

Ventilation when unwell

Is it possible to ventilate an apartment in winter if there is a person in the room with a cold, flu or some other ailment? Not only is it possible, but it is also necessary. In winter, excessively dry, warm air leads to overdrying of the mucous membranes and a decrease in their protective functions. In such conditions, the infection quickly spreads among family members, despite all precautions. For a speedy recovery, fresh air and optimal humidity are needed.

When you cough or sneeze, a cloud of microparticles of biological fluids containing viruses or bacteria is released into the air. In dry air they can remain indefinitely, but in humid air they quickly become saturated with moisture and settle down to the floor. Ventilation helps regulate humidity: you need to open the windows every 2 - 2.5 hours, in the absence of the patient. It is also recommended to use a humidifier and wet clean the room daily.

Is it possible to open windows in a room with a newborn?

For parents, this issue often becomes a stumbling block. Is it possible to ventilate a children's room, and if so, how often? It must be said that caution is not unnecessary here: the baby’s thermoregulation mechanism has not yet been properly developed. This does not mean that the nursery does not need to be ventilated - on the contrary, it must be done regularly, providing the child with fresh air and optimal humidity.

Gradual hardening is an important element of newborn care. Temperature changes and constant air circulation in the room strengthen the immune system and contribute to the formation of the child’s own skin microflora. If the baby is sick, airing is carried out as before, but at that time he is moved to another room.

Child safety

Tragic cases of children falling from windows are not uncommon. Main safety rules:

• make sure that the window is open in the “folding” mode, and the baby will not be able to change the position himself;
• do not leave children alone in the room unattended;
• talk about the rules of behavior at the window - you cannot lean on the mesh or glass, or turn the handle over. Only regular recitation will form an understanding of the rules;
• move chairs or stools away from the window opening. This way the child will be less tempted to climb onto the windowsill;
• equip the window with special protective devices. You can read more about child safety locks in our article on child safety.

And if there is a newborn in the house, how to properly ventilate the room? New parents can be very fanatical in this matter, getting confused in the conflicting advice of the experienced older generation and the pediatrician.

There must be fresh air in the nursery. In winter, ventilate as usual, just take the baby out of the room. Or you can put a stroller in the room and open the door. A child in warm clothes will not freeze.

In summer, the child can stay in the crib, but you should not create a draft. Mosquito nets will protect you from insects and dust in the summer. This is important for healthy, restful children's sleep. In any case, do not forget about all the safety rules so that the baby does not fall or get scared.

Difficulties in ventilation: dirt, noise and odors

The importance of ventilation is obvious, but there are a number of factors due to which most people open windows less often than necessary. We are talking about the inevitable companions of any apartment building within the city - street noise, dirt and dust, as well as foreign odors - burning, cigarette smoke, car exhaust and others.

A dilemma arises - if you keep the windows closed, stuffiness and humidity quickly accumulate in the house. When they are open, cigarette smoke from smoking neighbors begins to be drawn into the room, noise is annoying, and window sills and window frames quickly become covered with street dust. In winter, this problem is not so acute, since due to the cold the window is opened for a short time. But what to do in the summer?

Will air conditioning help in this case?

Unfortunately, it won't help. No matter how powerful your climate control equipment is, you will still have to open the windows often. The fact is that the air conditioner regulates the temperature in the room, but it is not able to provide the flow of fresh air.

There are devices such as air purifiers. Why not use them?

Such purifiers are an excellent choice for a city apartment: they remove dust, allergens and odors from the atmosphere of the room, and some models even disinfect the air, destroying the viruses and bacteria it contains. They have only one significant drawback - they only purify the “internal” air of the room. No matter how much you clean it, without an influx of air masses from the street, it quickly fills with carbon dioxide and becomes stuffy.

What about fresh air ventilation?

Modern supply ventilation devices are installed directly into the wall: for this purpose, a through channel is drilled into it. This ensures a direct flow of fresh air from the street and ventilation of the apartment without opening windows. It turns out that forced ventilation completely solves the problems of window ventilation.

Won't dust, noise, dirt and cold come through the hole in the wall?

No, this will not happen. Firstly, when installing the channel, noise and heat insulating materials are used. Secondly, supply ventilation is a “smart” device that not only pumps fresh air into the apartment, but also cleans it of a variety of contaminants. In winter, the incoming air flow will be heated by a built-in heater.

How to ventilate an apartment without opening windows

Traditional methods of ventilation do not at all correspond to the disgusting ecology of Russian cities. By opening the windows, we not only risk being exposed to a draft, but we also introduce into the house the atmosphere of street noise, dust, car fumes, allergenic pollen and other “charms” of civilization. This method is practiced only by people who do not know how to ventilate an apartment otherwise.

The method of window ventilation itself does not correspond to our ideas about comfort. It provides for the need:

• Take the child out of the room several times a day;
• Send students to another room;
• Constantly make sure that there is no draft, checking the tightness of the doors.

While providing air replacement, window ventilation does not solve the issue of humidity control and can cause an increase in heating costs.

The obvious disadvantages of this method are uncontrollability, lack of comfort and inability to purify street air. Therefore, people's attention is increasingly attracted to special devices and means of forced ventilation. By installing the appropriate equipment, you can ventilate your apartment without opening the windows. We list the range of ventilation equipment that provides ventilation when the windows are closed:

• Supply valves are an example of the simplest device that implements a natural ventilation scheme;

• Ventilators are efficient supply air units with mechanical draft, effectively clean and disinfect the supply air;
• Breezers are monoblock air inlets that are especially beneficial in winter. They heat the inflow, preventing drafts and freezing. Special breathers have been developed for children's rooms. Devices of the AIRNANNY brand from the A7 Start series create comfortable conditions for children, working in auto climate control mode;
• Monoblock and centralized PVUs provide exhaust functionality in addition to inflow. The former are designed for air exchange in one room, the latter for constant ventilation of the entire house;
• Recuperators are the latest generation of energy-saving PES. Using heat exchange technologies, recuperation units will save your heating costs.

OXY: an example of a compact and efficient air handling unit

As an example of the modern supply ventilation described above, we can name OXY, an economical wall-mounted breather with dimensions of 246 × 326 × 125 mm. The body of this simple and easy-to-use device contains a low-noise electric fan (18-27 W), a filter system, a ceramic heater (1 kW) and an electronic unit. The remote control is used to control the operation of the device.

OXY productivity is up to 150 m³/hour: this means that in a room with an area of ​​25 square meters and a ceiling height of 3 meters, the device will completely replace the air in just 30 minutes. At the same time, dust and carbon filters will clean it from smog, street dust, fluff and foreign odors, and the built-in heater will heat it up to a comfortable temperature. OXY operates very quietly, and in passive ventilation mode it becomes completely silent.

Another important advantage of this device is its modularity. Having installed OXY, in the future you can change it to more “advanced” models (OXY2, OXY3) simply by paying extra for the difference in the price of the devices. The device warranty period is 2 years.