Flatmaster PIV - Have I been conned?

[BadgerFiend]

Hi,

Thought I'd post here and get some advice. We have an old house (1908) and the basement was converted when we moved in (tanked and has pasterboard walls). This is now being used as my office so I decided to get the ventilation improved.

The company quoted for a PIV so we went ahead with that. After the installation (and unfortuantely payment) I read through the instruction manual and it said specifically that the Flatmaster "draws air in from outside then circulated it"> However, ours have been fitted without an intake to the outside air supply so surely this is just a very expensive, glorified fan.

Maybe I'm missing something so I've added as much info as I can below ( use the direction north/south etc as an indicator of location of the items relative to each other, not the actual facing of the structure)

* The basement is aprroximately 3m x 3m by 1.9m high.
* On the south wall are the stairs leading up to the ground floor. These do not have doors at the top or bottom
* On the north wall, 1m from the east wall, is 2 basic vents - these appear to be 2 bricks high each and are perforated to allow air in. I can feel very low air flow here
* The north wall therefore if the outside wall
* The east wall is an internal wall (to another terrace)
* The PIV has been installed on the west wall 1.5 meters from the north (outer) wall and very near the ceiling.
* However the exhaust is facing the south wall and the intake is facing the north outer wall. The problem is the intake doesn't have an intake pipe to the outside so surely it's just circulating air, not intaking fresh air?

Is this wrong? I have a bad feeling I've beem duped into buying an expensive fan.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[flameport]

he problem is the intake doesn't have an intake pipe to the outside

Totally useless then - the whole point is that it draws in fresh air from outside.

 

[JohnD]

Yes.

Probably you could get a duct fitted, through the nearest external wall (but preferably away from roads or other sources of pollution). They are usually fitted in the loft where the air is fairly clean.

OOI, what did the crooks charge you?

Did you find them on some advertising website masquerading as a recommendations site?

 

[BadgerFiend]

Yes.

Probably you could get a duct fitted, through the nearest external wall (but preferably away from roads or other sources of pollution). They are usually fitted in the loft where the air is fairly clean.

OOI, what did the crooks charge you?

Did you find them on some advertising website masquerading as a recommendations site?

Well they have a very professional site and a 9.9/10 rating on Checkatrade/5 star rating on Trustatrader so I thought I was on to a winner. The guy who quoted seemed very knowledgable and the electrician that fitted the PIV was very nice indeed which makes this all the more distressing.

They charge £660 but I guess that's becuase they didn't actually do the job that needed to be done. I'll be going through Trading Standards if I have to!

 

[JohnD]

ah

two advertising websites, where the traders pay to be listed.

 

[BadgerFiend]

There were 15 odd Google reviews too (but no Trustpilot). All I'm saying that it dudn't look that dire.