Another important issue to keep in mind is air circulation. Older homes and campers have lots of cracks and crevices to introduce air. If you seal your home up it becomes more of an issue with moldy stale air. So you can look into Air Exchangers but at a minimum you want some kind of way to exhaust the air which will pull in air when doors are opened etc. A simple bath vent fan and Stove hood fans are useful. There are automatic switches available that can activate the vent fan. In any case add something to keep the air quality high. I suggest having a dedicated one in the bathroom on a switch. As well as one separate just for air exchange connected to a timer switch or occupancy/motion switch. New regulations require essentially that for finished basements that have no forced air exchange. Air quality is becoming a bigger issue now that we are sealing up our structures.
One option is to use a regular vent fan mounted somewhere either in a ceiling or a cabinet. The vent fan should exhaust through insulated flexible duct if possible unless it's going straight out. It will contain conditioned air and can cause condensation or mold if not insulated. Powering that vent fan is a timer switch like linked item or similar.
Digital
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Programmable
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Switch
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https://www.amazon.com/Enerlites-HET01-C-Programmable-Settings-REQUIRED/dp/B01KG712PI/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1512210419&sr=8-3&keywords=timer+switch
This timer switch will activate the vent fan according to the programmed schedule. Or you can activate it manually. Once fan is mounted use foil tape to seal all holes in housing and seal housing to drywall or mounting surface. That way it's most efficient and sends the air out where you want it. For calculations figure the cubic square feet of your structure by multiplying length, width and height in feet. If in doubt round up. If you have a barn roof, just use the
height from floor to highest point of ceiling and full width, like one big rectangle. Then you have total cubic feet of your building. The vent fans are rated in CFM (cubic feet per minute) usually around 70,80,100 or 130 for a larger high volume one. So just divide your total cubic feet by the cfm rating of
the vent fan and you will have the number of minutes that fan will take to tot
ally exchange the air. That gives you some idea of how long to run your vent fan. I calculated one small structure at about 30min with a small cheap vent fan about 70cfm. So running it for 1hr a day will change the air 2 times approximately.
The vent fan will only be able to exchange the air if there is fresh air coming in from somewhere whether it's a window, door or another vent hood for example. Ideally one should add a fresh air intake.
It could be a 2
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3” pvc pipe from underneath if fresh air is accessible or straight out a side wall maybe hidden in a cabinet with a hole and cover through cabinet side etc. Just make sure it's fresh odor free air. If underneath is wet rank and smelly...you don't want that pulled inside so intake from outside. Itwouldn't hurt to have a valve on it so you can close it off completely or partially like in the cold when it's not needed as much. Be sure to seal the outside with a screen of some sort to keep bugs out. Many claim now oooh you don't need all that houses have be
en built for years without it. Modern structures are much better sealed now and need a flow of air. Especially if you start sealing things up like I have described. It wasn't really an issue in the past because house were built different and much
more open.
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