Sub Floor Ventilation Fans, Costs and Solutions
Subfloor Ventilation Cost
DIY Subfloor Ventilation Installation
Your sub floor, also referred to as the underfloor space, may seem insignificant because it does not form part of your living rooms or bedrooms. However, this space can actually have a high impact on the indoor air quality and may affect your health if your subfloor ventilation is insufficient.
Poor sub floor ventilation could lead to poor health outcomes for you, your family, or your employees. Additionally, poor subfloor ventilation can lead to expensive structural damage to your home or office premises.
To achieve a healthy home and reduce the risk of structural damage, one of the following sub floor ventilation systems can be used:
Subfloor Ventilation Exhaust System
THE GO TO STANDARD
This is the type of mechanical system that is appropriate to 99% of Australian buildings that have a suspended timber floor. Typical signs that you need this system are:
- Damp/musty smell inside the home
- Mould on clothing and footwear in cupboards
- Mould on furniture (look behind your bedhead!)
- Occupants with recurrent cold/allergic/asthmatic symptoms (do you feel better when you are on holidays?)
- Your pest or building inspector tells you that your subfloor needs more ventilation.
- Wood decay/rot in bearers and joists in the subfloor substrate.
Subfloor mechanical ventilation systems involve quiet, yet powerful, fans to extract air from your subfloor space via a network of tubes and ducts. As you expel the damp, manky air, atmospheric pressure replaces the expelled air with fresh, uncontaminated air.
These systems use mains powered low energy fans. Low voltage (low power) fans often struggle to move enough air to make a difference to a typical subfloor.
YOU SHOULD NEVER push air into a typical subfloor space as you may push contaminants and possibly dangerous pathogens into your internal space.
Over three quarters of the homes we attend have installed extra subfloor vents in an attempt to alleviate the problem of a damp subfloor – often at significant expense.
The reason these vents fail to solve the problem is that unless there is a wind blowing directly into the vents, they are unlikely to enjoy sufficient air exchange. The other issue is that the subfloor space is often blocked by internal structural walls and air conditioning, or heating, ducting that does not allow a natural (or passive) air exchange.
Additional external subfloor wall vents are very rarely required to be installed when a quality extraction system is deployed. This way you have a proven solution to your problem without any aesthetic impact.
Subfloor Supply and Balanced Systems
These should be deployed only after expert advice due to the risk of cross contamination. Mouldbuster will only install these systems in special circumstances and will walk away from jobs where home owners insist they know better!
Subfloor Ventilation Installation
Following the installation of your subfloor system there may be an initial musty smell – since we have crawled around and stirred up the subfloor soil.
Your subfloor fans will typically be set to run for 6 hours per day from 10am to 4pm. You should not hear the fans over typical ambient daytime noise. Running the fans during the day also has the benefit of drawing in daytime air which will be naturally warmer and have greater drying power.
Odours should be gone within 1 week. Internal mould should disappear, and you should not be bothered by the noise of the fans.
MOULDBUSTER CANNOT SEE YOUR HOME, HEAR YOUR HOME OR SMELL YOUR HOME FROM OUR PLACE
If you have any issues after installation, please contact us – that’s what our warranty commitment covers.
Underfloor Ventilation Cost
A quality sub floor ventilation system for an averaged sized Australian home will cost $2500-$3500 including GST, and have 7 years warranty on-site warranty.
The system will be installed by appropriately licensed and insured trades people who will arrive on time and clean up after themselves.
Do It Yourself (DIY)
Mouldbuster can supply plug and play kits Australia wide for DIY installation. Remember that electrical work must only be undertaken by licensed electricians.
We service homes and businesses and commercial properties for high moisture in states Australia wide, including the New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania.
Capital cities Australia-wide including: Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart, Newcastle, Wollongong, Launceston and Davenport.
Contact us, the sub floor ventilation and under floor ventilation fan experts, Mouldbuster on 1300 066 853 for advice on supply and installation of your best options to insure you have a healthy home.
RISING DAMP
Most people think they have a rising damp issue but in reality they have a ventilation issue. Here are some simple explanations to help you determine your issue:
Are you experiencing:
- Damp/musty smell inside the home?
- Mould on clothing and footwear in cupboards?
- Mould on furniture (look behind your bedhead!)?
- Occupants with recurrent cold/allergic/asthmatic symptoms (do you feel better when you are on holidays?)
- Your pest or building inspector tells you that your subfloor needs more ventilation?
THEN YOU ALMOST CERTAINLY HAVE A VENTILATION ISSUE AND NOT A RISING DAMP ISSUE.
MOULDBUSTER CAN FIX THIS AT A FRACTION OF THE COST, AND WITH MUCH GREATER SUCCESS, THAN A RISING DAMP SOLUTION
Are your experiencing:
- peeling paint or crumbling mortar on internal or external masonry walls.
THEN YOU LIKELY HAVE A RISING DAMP ISSUE, BUT:
How old is your home? – if it’s 50 years old or more then you are likely in the same boat as thousands of Australian homeowners and whilst your rising damp is annoying, it is unlikely to pose a major risk to the structural integrity of your home. Or you may have a plumbing/drainage issue that, again, is not a rising damp problem per se.
At MOULDBUSTER, we are ventilation experts and not builders. We can provide practical and pragmatic advice on RISING DAMP issues.
We have inspected over 5,000 homes over the last 13 years. We advise hundreds of home-owners every year on RISING DAMP issues. Mostly, homeowners understand their issues are ventilation related and not rising damp.
We seek to explain the issue in simple terms, and often, many homeowners fix the rising damp themselves at very low cost.
If you do consult a rising damp expert make sure you check their licence (the work is structural and should be done by appropriately qualified people), insurance and customer referrals – as the treatment is very expensive, very messy and should take at least 2-3 weeks to do properly.
