Control ventilation manually#
People and their activities give off moisture, and ventilation is required to remove it from the building. The traditional approach to ventilation is to provide features that allow users to introduce fresh air as needed - throwing up bathroom and kitchen windows, for instance. Over the years, ventilation features that are less “all-or-nothing” have appeared, like trickle vents in windows and extractor fans. The idea is still that users will exercise their judgment to get the airflow right. That works better in homes than in community buildings.
Covid raises particular worries about ventilation, and many childrens groups are still under instructions to both heat the space and keep external doors and windows wide open. The Health and Safety Executive has advice about how to assess how much ventilation is needed using CO2 monitors and we expect this to trickle through to community groups gradually. Many building operators are changing their manual ventilation controls as a result and instructing occupants in their use.
Church buildings can have very generous ventilation features that cause a great deal of heat loss, and sometimes this is because they were originally controlled manually. For instance, some tower louvres had long ropes that could be used to close the louvres while the building is heating up and in use, and then release the moist air from the service by opening the louvres for a while afterwards. Sometimes there are manual vents on windows, too. As a community, we need to develop a better understanding of how to obtain professional assessments of ventilation needs and recommendations for how to reduce ventilation without damaging our buildings, but thinking about how your building was designed to be used seems a good start.
More information
Assessing the risk of poor ventilation – Ventilation in the workplace (hse.gov.uk)
[Using CO2 monitors – Ventilation in the workplace (hse.gov.uk)](Using CO2 monitors – Ventilation in the workplace (hse.gov.uk))