Ventilation in prefab houses (wood frame with ETICS) also in solid houses?

Timber frame houses are often generally drier in terms of indoor air. I would definitely opt for a controlled residential ventilation system with humidity recovery.

In summer, ventilating through the windows at night and in the early morning hours brings more than if only the ventilation system is on. Furthermore, I have noticed that more dust is stirred up by the ventilation (level 1)...

Is dust stirred up by the ventilation system? The dust only gets in because the windows and doors are constantly open.

On top of that, there is the odor nuisance from outside, when someone is burning something again or from the field...

You also have that problem with open windows. Only with the ventilation system, the odors don’t stay long in the living rooms. It’s different with open windows. Even if you close them in time, you keep smelling... from the field for longer.

I also have the feeling that the kitchen smell spreads throughout the whole house when the wind is unfavorable. While in the kitchen, where the extractor is, you can no longer smell anything, and when you go into the children’s room, the kitchen smell hits you. Not exactly very pleasant...

Kitchen smell spreads throughout the whole house when the wind is unfavorable? And all that is caused by the central ventilation system in the house? Did I get that right?
The ventilation for the bedrooms is drawn from outside, so it should smell more like the field than like the kitchen!

By the way, my husband turned the ventilation on again, and I am already struggling with these problems again just 2 days later: dry nose, constantly feeling congested, and one child has also started coughing again. Coincidence? Probably not....

Just put hygrometers in individual rooms, then you will see how dry the air really is in your home and whether the value changes negatively when the ventilation system is turned on.

So the thing with the smells is a bit tricky. They also come in through the window. And you could just as well say you can turn off the ventilation all at once. You have to close the windows one by one. That takes longer... And using the window for a quick airing out when it stinks (for whatever reason) doesn’t stop the operation of a ventilation system... Besides, you can use proper filters in a ventilation system. In my experience, F7 filters are enough to keep most smells out (manure/chimney etc.). And dust swirling around because of the ventilation system?? What kind of ventilation do you have?? You shouldn’t really notice much of a draft. Every open window kicks up WAY more dust! But maybe you got seriously botched. If the system has such a strong draft, can’t be cleaned, has an air short circuit with the extractor hood, and the inlet is positioned where cats can pee inside, that sounds like bad planning and total botch job...

Dust only comes from outside? Where do you live? Cat hair, skin flakes, sand from shoes, lint from couch, pillows, bed, clothing – of course that doesn’t make any dust. The ventilation stirs it all up nicely. (our ventilation is set to 1) and unfortunately we can’t properly clean the air outlets either, because they are glued firmly into the floor in the living area and screwed in the bedrooms (you can loosen screws, yes, but the glued ones in the living area are hard to remove). If you look inside there – well, bon appétit.

Well, I really can’t share your negative attitude either. Since we had our ventilation system installed, we have never had to dust as little as we do now. The outside air (even though it’s a new development area with about 30 construction sites + construction roads) comes inside so clean (where the dirt stays you can see on the filter). Odors from the kitchen disappear pretty quickly (even fried calamari, which otherwise really pollutes the air). In the first few months, we had the ventilation on level 5 (out of 8), no draft was noticeable – so no stirred-up dust either. If the air outlets are dirty, something is wrong, since there’s a filter in front. Maybe something really got botched at your place, we would install the system again anytime!

Maybe the dust issue is also because the intakes at [Manu1976] are on the floor. That way dirt falls in there and is blown out again....

But the moisture in the house, especially in winter, I've heard that very often. It seems to be a problem even with ventilation systems. The cold air is heated, expands, and thus the moisture has to spread over a larger area, which leads to low humidity.

How much does such a moisture recovery system cost and is it actually hygienically safe? Especially with moisture, condensation water, and the like, I'm initially quite skeptical. How does this recovery actually work?

So we have a PLUGGIT Avent P. It’s actually supposed to be a good one.

The cat urinates not IN the intake, but in front of it in the garden or against the house wall.

We only have filters on the inside where the exhausts are, like in the bathroom, etc.

There are small air turbulences that you can of course only feel if you hold your hand over them and see when the sun shines on them. So nothing big, but enough for the so-called fine dust.

We don’t have an extractor hood, only recirculation. But since the kitchen is logically ventilated with the ventilation system and the air is led outside and around the corner the air intake is again there, the kitchen smell sometimes just blows exactly there. That has nothing to do with the ventilation itself. It works perfectly.

Let’s say, we could live with the odor nuisance and the dust, that is not the big problem for us. The main reason why we don’t want any more is the room air and I don’t trust the humidifier.

In the new house we now only have decentralized ventilation and exhaust in the bathrooms and in the utility room, which are also humidity controlled.