A busy bar and restaurant needed a proper supply of fresh air into the building. We installed a ducted heat recovery ventilation system, which takes heat out of the air being extracted and puts it into the fresh air coming in.
The challenge
A busy hospitality room needs its air changed continually, and kitchen extraction pulls a great deal of air out of a building. That air has to be replaced from somewhere. Where it is replaced by untreated outside air, the room gets a cold draught in winter and the heating works harder to make up for it — so the ventilation the room needs ends up fighting the heating the room also needs.
Site constraints
Ventilation in a bar or restaurant has to be effective without being noticeable. Customers should not be sitting in a draught or listening to plant noise, and the ductwork has to be routed through a building laid out around serving customers rather than around services.
Our solution
A ducted heat recovery ventilation system. Air being extracted from the building passes through a heat exchanger on its way out, and the incoming fresh air passes through the other side of it. Heat transfers from one stream to the other without the two mixing.
Fresh air therefore arrives already tempered rather than at outside temperature. The room still gets the full air change it needs; it simply does not get it as a cold draught.
Equipment and approach
Ducted supply and extract with heat recovery between the two streams, sized around the ventilation the space actually required rather than a rule of thumb.
Result
The bar and restaurant get the fresh-air supply a busy room needs, with the heating demand reduced compared with drawing in untreated outside air. We have not quoted a headline percentage saving: how much heat is recovered depends on the outside temperature and how hard the room is working, so a single figure would be misleading in most of the conditions the system actually runs in.
Related services
Air conditioning and ventilation · Catering equipment and extraction · Servicing & maintenance
Discuss a similar project
If your kitchen extraction is pulling the heat out of your dining room, telephone 0800 952 0081 or send us the details.