Posted on 09 02 2021

4 Ways to Naturally Ventilate Your Home

Wet and damp, brought in by condensation and excess moisture levels, create an ideal breeding ground for mould, bacteria, and mildew.

And while they grow quickly and comfortably, your home and health can start to deteriorate.

Having extractor fans can help target moisture problems in the home, like in your kitchen and bathrooms. But there are also a few ways that you can influence ventilation.

Natural ventilation uses wind, guiding fresh air into homes, eliminating bad odours, providing oxygen, and keeping you comfy all year round.

Utilise your windows

Windows are the key to natural ventilation, and luckily every home has them.

If you are building or in the process of renovating your home, then deciding what type of windows you’ll have and their placement is an important part of that process.

The most common type of windows is casement windows, which operate on hinged frames allowing them to swing outwards and inwards. These are ideal natural ventilators as they offer maximum ventilation into your home when fully opened and when shut will keep airflow from getting in.

Windows should be placed to best utilise the incoming breezes. In a coastal region, breezes come from an onshore direction and in hilly areas they typically travel downslope. The location of your home should be considered when installing its windows.

However, you may not be in the process of building or redesigning and don’t have the ability to simply move or replace your windows. Instead, you can install fencing or plant plants outside your home, which will help guide and channel air through windows.

Get the air moving

And while it may seem like air is literally blowing through your home, it is actually being sucked in towards an area of low air pressure.

Along with considering your windows’ positioning, you should also have windows or doors on at least two sides of each room.

These openings should be placed opposite each other or on adjacent walls. This allows for cross ventilation, 

A natural cooling method, this system uses wind to force cool, outside air through an opening, while another opening forces the warm air from inside back out.

This process removes stale air by replacing it with fresh air, helping to balance the temperatures inside your home. 

When you can, make sure to keep opposite windows or doors open to allow for cross ventilation, ensuring your home stays fresh.

Keep the air moving

To keep the air moving in your home, it’s also important to ensure you have convective ventilation, or stack ventilation.

Convective ventilation uses temperature differences to leverage control of its movement patterns.

Warm air rises through higher openings while also pulling in cooler air from lower openings.

Openings like skylights work on a convective air movement basis and also help improve cross ventilation.

Evening air

Especially when the heat is drawn out throughout the day, having cooler, evening air wafting through your home feels like a luxury.

Hot air circulating outside your home during the day is replaced with cooler air in the evenings.

Opening your windows in the night will help cleanse the inside of your home of this warm air, keeping you more comfortable while you sleep.

Keeping your home healthy will ensure that you stay healthy. There’s nothing worse than living in stale or hot, uncomfortable air. If you follow these tips for natural ventilation, you will be able to live more comfortably in your home.

If you need ventilation assistance, we can help. The first step is to contact us to book your home energy assessment.