Why You Should Ventilate Your Home In Spain
Why is it so important to ventilate your home in Spain?
There are some very good reasons for airing your home in Spain on a regular, if not daily basis, namely:
- A daily airing promotes an optimal indoor environment.
- Humans in Western industrial nations spend about 90% of their lives indoors so clean, pollutant-free indoor air is a prerequisite for health and well-being.
- Each day we breath in and out 15,000 to 20,000 times and in the process exhale 5 to 20 litres of CO2 per hour. In addition to this, breathing and sweating emit up to 100 grams of vapours per hour.
- Then there are pollutants that accumulate in the indoor environment: pet or human hair and dander, cat litter dust, spores from indoor plants, effusions from textiles and cleaning agents or increased dust pollution. Stale indoor air can affect our cardiovascular system in the long run and cause sluggishness, headaches and concentration problems. Regular ´shock ventilation´ (see below) can effectively replace stale indoor air and fill your home with fresh pollutant-free air.
- It prevents mould
- A four-person household will create about twelve litres of moisture per day. Combined with central heating during winter months in Spain, this can lead to mould growth.
Preventing Mould Growth
Have you ever woken up in Spain and found condensation on the inside of the windows? Yes, that´s the moisture in the indoor air that can lead to mould.
This excessive humidity in the indoor air should be removed regularly to avoid moisture damage and to prevent mould formation.
If you do not have an automatic ventilation system, the damp air must be replaced manually. Regular ´shock ventilation´ is the most effective way to do this.
This can save a lot of mould-related damage. Remember that, as a tenant, YOU are responsible for regularly airing out your home and preventing mould build-up. Otherwise, your landlord may demand the cost of mould removal from you.
Methods of ventilating your home in Spain:
Ventilating your home in Spain does not mean simply opening the window for a few minutes, and then closing it. There is a very effective German way of ventilating your home and that is the correct way:
Shock Ventilation
You may have heard of shock ventilation, probably more often during Wintertime. This is a highly recommended way of ventilating your home during the colder months. Typically people tilt their windows to ventilate their
homes, but this is considered an inefficient way to air out your apartment. With shock ventilation, windows are opened completely for several minutes
ensuring a faster exchange of air. Through shock ventilation, stale air is replaced by fresh air, and humidity and pollutants are removed.
Cross ventilation
You´re probably already familiar with the term cross ventilation. It means completely opening all windows AND doors of the living unit. This creates a
rapid draught of air with the damp, stale indoor air quickly replaced with dry, fresh outdoor air. Cross ventilation is simply shock ventilation with extra
steps.
The best way to cross ventilate is to open the windows on opposite sides of the building in separate areas in turn, so that other areas of the house can be
kept warm/cold depending on the season. If you live on an upper floor and have a balcony, you should also open the balcony door completely to ensure
maximum airflow.
This way two rooms with open windows on opposite side of the house are ventilated at the same time. This reduces the ventilation time to about one to
five minutes.
Handycall Construction can help with any of your ventilation/mould problems. Just give us a call for a friendly chat or email some photos of your problem to
us at enquiries@handycallconstruction.com
Contact Us
For any further advice, please telephone Graham on +34 675 589 669
Graham Mavin
Handycall Construction
C/Patricio Ferrandiz, 40, Servibox 484
E/03700 Denia, Alicante
Web: www.handycallconstruction.com
Tel: +34 675 589 669
Email: enquiries@handycallconstruction.com
