Ventilation maintenance in Soignies

Soignies mixes a blue-stone village core, post-war houses and new builds on the outskirts. The first often have no mechanical ventilation at all; the last have one nobody has reopened since handover.

It is the typical municipality where we are called out for a noise or a smell, and where the readings reveal airflow halved because the filters have not been changed in five years. The remedy usually costs less than the symptom suggests. That holds for new builds and older houses alike.

Beyond the centre, Naast, Neufvilles, Casteau and Thieusies are villages of stone and brick houses, often extended with an annexe over the years. Ventilation there is rarely designed as a whole: a cooker hood, a bathroom extractor, sometimes nothing. The developments that have appeared since the 2000s, especially towards Casteau and SHAPE, are by contrast airtight houses delivered with a heat-recovery system. In between, the houses of the 1970s and 1980s often have one extractor per wet room, noisy and seldom replaced. Casteau also houses many families posted to SHAPE for a few years, who inherit a system they did not choose.

The units we open in these recent houses often carry the Zehnder, Renson or Brink badge, occasionally Vasco, and sit in an attic or a utility room. The ductwork is short and simple to check, but the original filters are frequently still in place years after handover. In the older houses the visit starts by checking that the existing extraction really does discharge outdoors. Sending a picture of the rating plate with the booking tells us beforehand which unit we will be dealing with.

Parking is never a difficulty in Soignies, and the villages are quick to get around. The visit can be fixed for a weekday evening or the weekend; the report follows by email. The surrounding villages are covered in the same round, which simplifies planning.