Hello Good Folks of GBT, A friend's new house has been completed with hot water radiant heating in the floor - however, no ventilation was provided for the basement rooms at all (plus no windows to speak of). The owner asked me to do a walk through as I worked as a Mechanical Engineer for 30+ years. I found this basement area to be of concern. My question is in regards to this basement area and do they need to provide ventilation? And how it is handled when dealing with radiant heating? The basement areas I am most concerned about are: 1) a theater (20' x 15') with seating capacity for 12 people and 2) a separate exercise room (15' x 10'). The contractor did not provide any ventilation at all, whereas I believe it should have a minimum 10 cfm of outside air per person. However, I have not had previous experience with radiant heating projects. If I had been consulted from the start I would have recommended air conditioning these areas - however, the project is now essentially completed and the owners are not wanting a bunch of additional duct work. So what can we do? Any help or suggestions would be most appreciated. Also, I am a first time online forum user. :) Kind regards, Walter

I expect that just leaving the doors open would be enough for most cases. If that's not possible, then they should install HRV ducts (much smaller than heating ducts).

If they want a functional theater and exercise room they will attend to the ventilation issue. The worst theaters and exercise rooms I have ever seen appear to be beautiful, but the problem is that ventilation was not adequately provided for and they get far too hot. Typically, those rooms will need air conditioning in places central air is not usually required. Calculate how much heat 12 people at rest generate, not to mention the AV equipment, which usually has some substantial heat producers. The exercise room needs are obvious. Who wants to work out where you are rebreathing your own CO2?

And, I am wondering how they got around building code making a basement room where 12 people could be trapped without any egress.

One thing I might try in Vancouver would be to install an inline variable speed fan with a small amount of ducting that would move outside air directly inside. At least you could watch movies 6 or 7 months a year.

ASHRAE 62.2 defines the residential ventilation standard, but there is much debate about the merits of this standard:

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/how-much-fresh-air-does-your-home-need

Where was the building inspector during this construction?