Smart Air Bricks

Reed_Richards

Hazel29 said:

I recently had these smart air vents installed in my bungalow.  They work!  

Surely it's way too soon to say that?  You can make your house more economical to heat by simply blocking the air bricks but the danger is that this leads to problems with damp because the house isn't getting the ventilation it was designed for.  Any damp problems you might experience if your smart air bricks turn out to be not smart enough could take a couple of years to manifest.  So maybe come back in spring 2025 or 2026 and tell us how you are getting on.  

QrizB

Hazel29 said:

I recently had these smart air vents installed in my bungalow.  They work!

Thank you for coming back to this thread.

You previously mentioned that you had been quoted quite a high price:

Hazel29 said:

I have had a quote for Airex Smart vents for my bungalow and was surprised to find that the prices one sees online are wildly too low  I was quoted between £3000 and £4800 for 17 vents!   ...  energy savings are predicted of around £100 to £150 per year at best for gas heating

How much were you charged in the end? How big a saving do you think you are making on your energy bills?

FreeBear

Reed_Richards said:

Hazel29 said:

I recently had these smart air vents installed in my bungalow.  They work!  

Surely it's way too soon to say that?  You can make your house more economical to heat by simply blocking the air bricks but the danger is that this leads to problems with damp because the house isn't getting the ventilation it was designed for.  Any damp problems you might experience if your smart air bricks turn out to be not smart enough could take a couple of years to manifest.  So maybe come back in spring 2025 or 2026 and tell us how you are getting on.  

I would say give it ten years for rot to set in and cause damage. In the short term, any problems are unlikely to become apparent unless you put a foot through the floor (the damage will be slowly building unseen).

MultiFuelBurner

Hazel29 said:

I recently had these smart air vents installed in my bungalow.  They work!  I am able to run my central heating in the coldest months at flow temperatures between 45 and 50 degrees C.  I'd tried to do this the winter before and found my system toiling to give me confortable temperatures. The hub in the system sends data to Airex who give me a monthly summary of performance.  The vents not only reduce heat loss through uninsulated floors but also reduce losses through walls as these are ventilated from below.

Taking into account degree days (the milder temperatures we have been having this winter)

It has generally been milder this winter compared to last so add that into the thought process 👍

subjecttocontract

There seems to be some confusion surrounding air bricks. There are air bricks above dpc and those below dpc. In my part of Essex where property is built on piled foundations property is built with air bricks below dpc to ventilate the floor void under the house. Piled foundations with block & beam floors have no timber in that area so there is nothing to rot.

RHemmings

This thread is back to life. As of Monday, I actually own the house that I was considering putting these smart air vents in, and I'm very encouraged by @Hazel29's experience. I'll continue researching. 

MeteredOut

RHemmings said:

This thread is back to life. As of Monday, I actually own the house that I was considering putting these smart air vents in, and I'm very encouraged by @Hazel29's experience. I'll continue researching. 

I think we need some data to back up the experience; until then I suspect there has to be a level of post purchase rationalisation at play.

eg, what were the before measurements, boiler flows, thermostat settings, kWh usage, average temperatures etc, and what were they afterwards.

RHemmings

While I intend to research this further, I would vaguely surmise that any active ventilation system would likely be more effective than passive ventilation. I'm going to look into that further so that I don't base decisions on vague surmise. 

Hazel29

Update on my first comment.  While the smart vents are an excellent idea the customer service by Airex, if anything goes wrong ,is very poor

RHemmings

Hazel29 said:

Update on my first comment.  While the smart vents are an excellent idea the customer service by Airex, if anything goes wrong ,is very poor

Could you please tell us more?