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Heat recovery systems
We had a vent axia HR25 for a few years, it worked quite well. It's a fan replacement unit, with heat exchanger - there are quite a lot on the market these days. It measures humidity and runs faster after a shower typically.
In our case it was a "gateway" unit, and I sold it on after a few years 2nd hand. We did a lot of air-tightening, and fitted full house MVHR which does the same thing, just better. I agree that the money is difficult to justify - I think it saves around 1MWh of heating per year in our 4 bed 120m^2, 300m^3 house, which equates to around £80 of gas these days, while using £20 of elec. As it was a diy fit, that gives a payback of £2400/(£80-£20) = 40 years. If it were pro fitted, the bill would be 2*. But the house is so much nicer now, we don't have to mess around opening windows when it gets stuffy, it's quiet inside, we're saving energy hence CO2. We got a new kitchen 15 years ago, that will never pay back...
*edit - added in the elec cost to the "payback" calc
@robl What make of MVHR did you get please ? Do you expel kitchen air separately (I've seen this mentioned as an option as it might clog filters in the MVHR unit sooner)?
We have a Vent Axia Sentinel Kinetic Plus BH. Which I recommend, had it maybe 8 years, never gone wrong. It has a kitchen extract, and I put a grease filter on it. We independently have a hob top extractor fan, which goes outside directly. I agree with your comment - if you do a lot of frying there will be a lot of grease, and best not to clog up the mvhr with it. So once every few days the extractor is on for 10 mins.
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