To tell MIL to go home!! Semi-lighthearted

[Omgstop]

NC for this!!😩 Ok so we have an air to water heating and air exchange system (newly built house) and MIL is staying over! She is VERY old school, wakes up EVERY morning and opens the bedroom window. I’m actually ok with this for 10mins etc but she tries to leave it open ALL DAY!!! I am blue In the face trying to explain to her that it is making our system work harder and that it is not needed!!! Everytime I close the window I come back an hour later and the bloody window is open AGAIN!! She is baffled as to how we can prevent damp etc!! I am fed up explaining that the system does it all!! That our house is pretty much airtight and that’s WHY it works so well, that’s why we have no damp, that’s why our house is an ambient temperature (except for when she leaves the flipping window open) I then notice a drop in temp and the heating system is clocking in unnecessarily. aibu to tell her if she doesn’t stop she can go home and open her own windows!! 😭😭😫 rant over!!

YANBU.

All these people saying they couldnt cope without the window open all day in Winter lest they suffocate need to get out for a walk.

@HiGunny my Dh has said he might do this if she keeps insisting/forgetting to close her window but to be honest I feel like regardless of the heat system she needs to close her window because when we leave the house we may as well leave the front door unlocked. The room she is in is at the side of the house but close enough to the road that it could be noticed by a passing car 😭 I don’t want the house robbed in our first year of living here 😬

@LaBelleSauvage 😂😂

You need to remember to check the window before going out.

Or just lock it after it's been open in the morning.

She sounds like she's being deliberately obtuse though. Do you have plans for a nice patio?

Is this not simply - she can have window open at night & then check windows closed during the day - Is it that simple or have I missed something? There is IMHO a difference between temperature and fresh air. But perhaps just me. I cannot believe there is not a compromise here .

All best Op - I agree with you - windows do not need to be open all day. At night , well I prefer them so.

sounds horrific, even in the winter I need my windows opened 1 hour a day, but it's my house, my personal preference. and no, I don't need to go for a walk, thanks

She is just being rude, she might not like it but it's your home, your rules! Close the windows behind her, not much you can do.

sounds horrific, even in the winter I need my windows opened 1 hour a day, but it's my house, my personal preference. and no, I don't need to go for a walk, thanks

@StinkyCandle I think “horrific” is a bit of an exaggeration. Airing a room is airing a room...it literally can’t be anymore “aired” in one hour than it can in 10-20 mins which I have repeatedly said even I do most days.

But the point of the system itself is that it recirculates the air and extracts and smells and condensation so that you don’t “have to” do this. For the system to work the house needs to be somewhat airtight and highly insulated. Also due to the increased insulation it retains heat do the heating system doesn’t need to come on so often and therefore saving money and being more efficient for us and the environment.

Ah I see. In which case I agree with the pp who said turn the room thermostat down, and check the window is closed when you leave the house.

I do get the frustration- we live in an old house that costs a fortune to heat and is draughty- when relatives then insist on having windows opened all night letting my lovely heat out I am a bit .

However, they don't stay long and I try to accommodate them as part of being a good host.

Don't get me wrong, I am not discussing the efficiency of the system, it's just not my personal preference. I do not like the idea of an airtight house. I like fresh air, my bed feels cleaner when it's been aired.

I feel like the house stinks if the windows are not opened enough, but again, personal preference. I wouldn't dream of keeping the windows open in somebody else's house out of the room where I sleep - and even so wouldn't leave it open all day!

Your MIL should respect your rules, I think she's rude.

I didn't realise this annoyed people so much. DH and I both like to be cold at night and we tend to have the heating lower than most people anyway, so if we're staying with someone overnight we usually leave the window open all day (obviously closing it if we go out) and close the bedroom door so it gets nice and cool for bedtime. Am now panicking that we've been pissing people off wherever we go!

I imagine that if you keep your door closed and switch your heating off, you're fine. As long as the radiators are not turned to the max, there can't be an issue - in most systems!

No one can sleep if they are too cold or too hot, everybody understands that. The MIL is on another issue with her damp worries.

I'm with MIL. It's only a couple more days, not forever; let her have some fresh air instead of weird claustrophobic recycled aeroplane air.

I guess it should be your house:your rules.
I've got a big old Victorian house that let's in every blessed breath of air but is rambling and nice and I love it from the depths of my thermal undies. No idea what square metre/mile/foot/perch it is but I can see why you would know with a new build.

Gah! Hadn't finished!
Opening a window here might well warm it up.
I'm just sticking around shamelessly for more property details. I love a bit of house porn me and this house sounds in all ways fantastic.

Everybody's so weirded out by this system but it's almost the norm in some other countries, or a similar version. It doesn't smell stale.

I was baffled when I moved to the UK for the need to air out houses and the sheer amount of mold/condensation in some of them.

Leave it be for this time, put a lock on it after she leaves so it's there before she visits again. Suffer through the next three days and accept you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Then enjoy your heating system in bliss after she's gone.

I know at 18 you should be old enough to make own decisions but my daughter goes clubbing till 4.30 which I know is the new norm but then she wants to go to the casino afterwards and I tell her no she needs to come home, which she does but I don’t think it’s appropriate for her to be in a casino to till 6 or 7 in the morning , I still think she is too young for that type of lifestyle. Am I being too hard on her.

Hi Rtmhwales!
I know very little about this. I was presuming that this type of system would have to be fitted as a house was being built and couldn't, say, be installed in a draughty old one? Just wondering, no interest at all...
Although I probably couldn't afford it if it was but I could dream.
The mouldiest house I've ever been in was in France but it was a beautiful place otherwise.
Sorry OP. This is not the point of the thread I realise.

Oh my just let her leave the window open. What a fuss about nothing.

Why should OP 'just let her keep the window open' when its effecting the rest of OPs house?

Affecting*

For all those banging on about it, the house essentially has a mechanical set of lungs. The house will be “airtight” (I.e.: will passively have less than 3 changes of air at 50mega paschals if pressure). There will be a fan that draws in air from outside the house and pumps it into the rooms through ducting (after filtering). This increase in air pressure in the rooms forces the warm air out of a set of exhaust ducts.

The air going out the exhaust duct passes through a heat exchanger that the intake air also passes through. A heat exchanger is basically a big heat sink, like you have in your computer (the chunk of metal with radial fins coming off it to disperse heat from the processor). These fins will transfer heat to the fresh air coming in to the house, while not exchanging any moisture or smell in the air.

So a house like this is CONSTANTLY drawing in fresh air- it’s just not cold air. The heating system therefore has much less work to do. You don’t need to open windows AT ALL. That is the whole point and entire purpose of the design. Your house constantly has a feed of fresh air that arrives in the room approximately 5-10 degrees below ambient and so the heating only has minimal work to do to maintain ambient temperature.

Old/moist/smelly air is constantly being expelled. The house is also a constant positive pressure environment so I’m imaging that OP has very little dusting to do as well, and that opening the window will significantly drop air pressure creating a draft through the house, and making the house dirtier.

And someone asked above- no it can’t really be fitted to old houses. Mostly because they can’t easily be made air tight, secondly because they almost never have the required level of insulation and finally because running ducting through old walls is nigh on impossible. It’s a new build thing only really. Which is a shame cause I really wanted this system but couldn’t have it :(

"very little dusting"... nghh...!!!
Oh! This is going far beyond my usual property porn and sending me to realms of which I knew not. Sigh....
Seriously, looking at your explanation, Tubeworker, MiL seems to be creating quite a problem. Perhaps, OP, it's worth showing her that post.
It sounds a brilliant system. Is it more "green" than standard houses? I can see arguments both ways.

PS Thanks for answering my question.

I don’t think you chose the right forum for this OP because most people haven’t heard of MVHR.

It’s basically fresh air being pushed into every room and pulled out of the kitchen and bathroom via vents but the air is heated as it comes in, there’s no smells because the air is constantly moving around the house, it’s like always having a window open but the air coming in is heated and filtered.