Internal house air cooling

[jgharston]

I only need to draw on the cold during maybe 1/3 of the day, during maybe 1/3 of the day the ground will recharge the cold store. It's the same principles Sheffield Town Hall was built on in 1895 before they buggered it up in the 1930s by blocking all the ventilation and installing heating.

Anyway, it's worth experimenting with as it's much easier (and cheaper) to play around with some ducting and a couple of vent fans than it is to try and work out where on earth I'd put an air conditioning unit.

Thanks everybody.

JGH

[Onetap]

Yes, do that. I suspect you'll find that after you've drawn out the air volume in the cellar, it's not much cooler.

It will also contain more moisture. High RH is even more uncomfortable than high temperatures.

[John Rumm]

That is probably one of those semantic arguments that follows from there not having been a legal maximum for exposure to radon set - hence there is no level below which you can claim its "safe because the government says so".

Indeed.

Yup. In fact many of the so called maximum exposure limits are if anything too low anyway. If you remember the fuss about caesium release during the Japanese earthquake - the levels set as "safe" are set on the assumption that you will be exposed to those levels continuously. Something that is actually hard to achieve with one off release of an element with a half life of a few days.

[dennis]

There is almost no radon in the air so its not going to be sucked into a house with the air. To maintain even a small pressure difference would require energy. Most houses leak like sieves and it would take a lot of energy to maintain a pressure difference.

The reality is the radon gas seeps in from the ground with no pressure difference needed between the house and the outside air. It accumulates because of a lack of ventilation. Even a slight amount of ventilation would get rid of the radon. Even the air bricks used in old houses would be enough.

You don't get radon in new houses because a plastic membrane is enough to stop it getting in and they use them to stop the damp.

[Chris J Dixon]

There was a very good official publication around a few years ago discussing the public perception of risk. One of their main findings was that people have a very subjective assessment of risk. If the consequence of something, such as an air crash, is catastrophic, then the fact that the likelihood is remote does not register, and the perceived risk is high.

The report also had some interesting comparison tables. One that really surprised me was that deaths due to natural radon were running at about half those due to road accidents

Chris

[Matty F]

We are not talking about a new house. Radon is a heavy gas so it accumulates in basements that are open to the ground. The OP is intending to suck the air from his basement and blow it into his house. So he will be breathing radon. If I wanted to cool or heat my house I would make a heat exchanger and I would bury pipes in the ground.

[jgharston]

No granite in Sheffield.

JGH

[Matty F]

the geological structures giving rise to radon in Derbyshire continue on towards Sheffield.

'It's fairly obvious that there will be a percentage of houses affected in the outskirts of Sheffield,' she said.

[Harry Bloomfield]

jgharston expressed precisely :

Which is always the correct approach!

[djc]