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Green Building Bible, Fourth Edition
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Heating and cooling: MVHR filtering out wood smoke particles ideas

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  1.  
    • CommentAuthorSwarm
    • CommentTimeDec 14th 2022
     
    Living in an urban environment, I'm getting a lot of PM sucked into the house by the MVHR now it's winter and everyone is lighting fires. Not what I want in my kids lungs, especially my asthmatic one.

    I know about units like Zehnder filter box but am nervous about fitting them to an otherwise functioning MVHR unit. Cutting pipe work etc.

    Has anyone else dealt with this problem? Are such units simple to fit?

    I also wondered about buying some hepa filters designed for vacuums and sealing them inside the actual room outlets. If I remove the outlet there is a plastic plenum? box that could fit a filter and I could seal around it. I thought maybe that the cumulative area of these filters over all the house outlets could be similar to one large filter next to the main MVHR. With the bonus I wouldn't have to modify the main unit pipe work.

    Finding a suitable size filter is challenging but I should be able to. Worth a go maybe?
    • CommentAuthorbhommels
    • CommentTimeDec 14th 2022
     
    Hi, I have the same problem, sometimes.
    Despite having upgraded the inlet filters from G4 + G4 to G4 + F7, this does not eliminate all smoke traces.
    You could introduce HEPA filters just about everywhere, do keep in mind that this will increase the resistance significantly and with that the running cost and wear. I had to recalibrate my MVHR after the filter upgrade.
    I unfortunately just have to switch the MVHR off when folks around me have a go at burning wood for visual comfort, grrrr. (Our village is connected to mains gas)
    • CommentAuthorSwarm
    • CommentTimeDec 14th 2022
     
    I turn off at the moment too. I set up an Airthings monitor to automatically turn off the MVHR when PM in one of the rooms goes beyond X. Which helps but ideally the MVHR would be on a lot more than it is currently!

    I might experiment with HEPA filters at outlets as it will be quicker and cheaper if it works.
    • CommentAuthorSwarm
    • CommentTimeDec 14th 2022
     
    I've been and purchased some hepa numatic vacuum bags. Having cut them in half, so they are a single layer, it was simple fitting them over a couple of room outlets. There's some excess I need to trim off but they seem to still allow air to pass.

    Typically, no-one is currently burning wood, so I can't test how effective they are!

    I'm also wondering about just having a single (cheap vacuum bag) filter at the manifold, next to the MVHR, for ease of replacing and tidiness. But there will then be a smaller filter area, so increased resistance for airflow.
  5.  
    Can you get a Hepa filter for the actual MVHR filter? I thought you could?
    • CommentAuthorSwarm
    • CommentTimeDec 14th 2022
     
    Unfortunately not for the model I have (Kinetic Plus B), I think something like a G3 is the maximum, which is neither use nor ornament for PM 2.5 and smaller.
    • CommentAuthorSwarm
    • CommentTimeDec 15th 2022
     
    Not the best looking thing but this is about the cheapest way to get mvhr hepa filtering in a pinch. Quite a large surface area per outlet but not had a chance to test with smoke yet.
      B468CDF5-BA62-4766-810B-D3693CA16262.jpeg
    • CommentAuthorcjard
    • CommentTimeDec 16th 2022 edited
     
    Light a fire yourself?

    Have you done it to all outlets? I suspect that the resistance will increase so much that it'll be not much different to just turning it off..

    Mine's turning itself off for anti frost purposes anyway :)
    • CommentAuthorSwarm
    • CommentTimeDec 16th 2022
     
    Yes just done it to all outlets in the last five mins. I don't think the resistance is too great as there's 8 outlets, each with a large area of bag over them.

    There's even bigger bags I could have used but it looks silly enough already. I can still feel a lot of air coming out of the outlets and the fan speed is only on about 35% at the moment. It's certainly better than having to turn off the whole unit when the smoke is bad.

    It looks like there'll be some wood burning tonight, so hopefully will see some lower PM levels now.

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