Venting a room
 

I was just wondering what everyone uses to continuously vent a fish room that's going to experience a lot of water evaporation?



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I've been wondering the same thing myself. The ideal solution seems to be a whole home HVR (heat recovery ventilator) unit. Seems like most new construction in Canada requires these nowadays. But it wasn't so when my house was built in the 1950's and retrofitting one to your entire home seems like it will be very expensive. I've been doing a lot of searching and they do sell single rome HVR's in Europe that would be ideal for a fish room, but I haven't found anywhere online that offers shipping to North America. You could always just vent the room with a regular bathroom exhaust fan that is controlled by a humidistat, but I'm curious to know what solutions other people have come up with.

If it was just one small room I would use a 150-300CFM fan hooked up to a humidstat switch.

Larger spaces it may be time to look into a HRV.

More or less what I added. Though a HRV is not required by code in Canada (NBC 2012) but it may be required by a provincial code (not required in Alberta). It is a good idea though to have it installed in new construction.

There are many threads on here about retofitting a HRV to an existing house. The costs vary, but in most cases, the price would be worth it.

I just use a dehumidifier and recycle the water=)

I ran into this problem last year where humidity was upwards of 55% in the basement. I installed a Panasonic fan on a dehumidistat which cured the problem (I've never noticed it running).

I weighted this against an HRV and on paper my option was more cost effective and less painful to install.

I've noticed no price increase in power or gas. When I ran a dehumidifier it bumped my electricity bill by about $30 per month to keep up.

The fish room is downstairs in the garage and its only 10X8. There's 250G of water in the sump, frag tank, and refugium though. The amount of condensation that's accumulating down there is alarming though. The display tank will be in an addition I've just built off the back of my house on the 2nd floor supported by my deck. I've installed a bathroom fan in that room but im wondering if that's going to move enough air now.

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My room in the garage is about 20x8
It is unheated and I run about 200g with various tanks.
I use a bathroom fan and it does a good job.

I think one of the reasons HRV is becoming code in many jurisdictions for new construction is due to the air tight construction these days with vapour barriers etc sealing the entire dwelling from the elements. Like you, my home was built in the late 50's and I've been fence sitting about installing HRV as well. While the house is solid & well built, there are plenty of nooks & crannies for outside air to enter & indoor air to escape. Really not sure an HRV is going to do much for me. The climate is relatively dry here most of the year and the humidity indicator I have sitting near my display tank always shows in the normal range.

Planning a basement sump at some point & I think I'd go with a simple fan on humidistat as a first step if things got too damp before spending the $$$s on retrofitting a whole house HRV.

Thanks guys. Because it's just a small room I need to take care of plus my house was built in the 60's, an HRV probably isn't the way I'll go either. Im leaning towards the bathroom fan since others seem to think that should be enough. What about those installed cylindrical metal fans you see from time to time? I'd rather stay away from anything built of all metal but does anyone know what im talking about or have any experience with those?

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