I have scanned all the topics on this forum and can't find anything that
covers my query so here goes. I am trying to get my head round ventilation
and what would be best to install in a highly insulated masonry eco home - ventilation that doesn't just evacuate the warm air. . There's passive whole house, mechanical with heat recovery (MVHR) and even a type that extra heat can be added to the incoming air. There's also a new gizmo on the market now called dwell-vent windows, where air enters the house via the gap between the inner and outer pane of a window and is said to warm up in the process. But how does that
impact on the whole ventilation. Will bathroom air still evacuate.? As if it wasn't complicated enough I have this past week come across bespoke systems whereby air is drawn through an underground pipe into the house, claiming to warm it up in winter and cool it down in summer. REHAU also do a ground to air system called Awardukt. This sounds a clever idea but I've not read anything from users about how this impacts on the whole house ventilation.

Has anyone any useful tips to pass on about ventilation and these different perhaps complementary products?

I recently did some modelling on a proposal to use ground effect cooling by venting the entire under floor void (ground floor only obviously) in to the house when the house temperature reached a trigger point. The effect never lasted longer than 10 minutes. I think that this is because the heat transfer between air and the ground/rock is so slow and the air in a buried pipe or void takes a long time to reach the earth temperature. To make it work you would need a lot of pipe!

For cooling the best results were always; shading the windows or venting to the outside air (which in an occupied insulated house was often cooler).

I found this all very disappointing as I had always felt that ground effect cooling was such an elegant solution.