Apartment ventilation in Batumi: air supply, extraction, heat recovery

How ventilation works in a new-build apartment

In most Batumi buildings, apartment ventilation is natural. Air leaves the bathroom and kitchen through the building's ventilation shafts, and it is supposed to come in through the windows. While windows were wooden, the gaps in the frames let in enough air. uPVC and aluminium windows with seals close almost airtight, and with the casements shut the shaft simply has nothing to draw out.

So we plan the layout from the air supply to the extraction. Every habitable room needs a way for air to come in, the bathroom, kitchen and walk-in wardrobe need a way out, and between them there has to be a path through the gaps under the doors. If one link is missing, the room gets no air exchange: a bedroom shut for the night without an inlet vent is stuffy by morning, however well the bathroom extracts.

Survey: the draught in the building's ventilation shafts

We start by measuring the draught in every shaft. We hold an anemometer at the grille twice: with the windows closed and with a casement ajar in the next room. If the airflow rises noticeably with the casement open, the shaft is working and the apartment is short of fresh air supply. If there is no draught even with the window open, the shaft is blocked or sealed off, and that is a matter for the building's management company.

The ventilation shafts are shared by all the apartments above and below you. You can't widen or move them, break up the ventilation block to make a niche, or connect a cooker hood into the neighbours' shared duct. In resale apartments a shaft is sometimes bricked up or clogged with debris from a renovation on a floor above. Cleaning it from a single apartment is pointless, so we agree a full-height clean with the building, as with other work on shared services during a full renovation.

Air supply: wall vent, window vent or heat recovery unit

We drill the hole for a vent or heat recovery unit with a diamond core bit through the block infill of the wall, not through a concrete column: under the rules as of 2026, load-bearing structures may only be altered to a design and with a permit. We set the sleeve with a slight fall to the outside, so driving rain doesn't run into the room.

We place the vent high up, by the edge of the window or above the radiator if there is one. The cold air has time to mix with warm air while it sinks towards the bed. Behind a curtain or a wardrobe a vent works at half strength, so we don't hide it there.

Extraction from the bathroom, kitchen and walk-in wardrobe

How we connect a fan with a non-return valve is described on the page about bathroom renovation, and the cooker hood duct is covered in the article on kitchen renovation. Here we deal with the case where the shaft is a long way off.

For a second bathroom or a kitchen-living room at the other end of the apartment we fit an inline duct fan: it pulls air along a long duct run that a wall-mounted fan can't cope with. We hide the fan and the duct in plasterboard boxing with an access hatch for servicing. Where the run goes along a cold outside wall, we insulate it, otherwise condensation collects inside.

Bedroom doors get a gap at the bottom or a transfer grille: they are shut at night, and without this the fresh air from the bedroom can't reach the extraction.

Order of work and what not to do afterwards

We make the holes in the walls and the boxing at the rough stage, before the window reveals and ceilings. Diamond drilling brings water and dust, and after painting it would ruin the finish. The cables to the fans and heat recovery units are run together with the rest of the electrics and photographed before they are closed up. Vents, fans and grilles go in after painting.

A stretch ceiling must not cover the shaft grille: a mounting ring is set into the membrane for it. In winter the vents are turned down with the adjuster but not closed completely: in the cold months it is the fresh air supply that stops condensation building up on the windows. If the apartment is damp even with working ventilation, we look for the cause by measuring humidity, as described on the page about dehumidification.

What we check at handover

• the draught at every grille with an anemometer, with the windows closed and the vents open;
• the non-return valves: with the fan off, no air blows out of the shaft;
• the outside grilles, the fall of the sleeves and the sealing around them;
• the gaps or transfer grilles in the doors;
• the fan timers and the heat recovery unit modes.

Mistakes in someone else's installation show straight away: a cooker hood cut into the shared shaft, flexible duct sagging in loops, a grille covered by the stretch ceiling membrane.

How much apartment ventilation costs in Batumi

Fitting a bathroom extractor fan costs from 45 to 60 ₾. This is labour only, and the fan is priced separately.

A through-wall air inlet vent with core drilling costs 330–480 ₾ each, and a single-room heat recovery unit, installed, 2,160–3,120 ₾. Ceiling boxing for a ventilation duct costs 60–72 ₾ per linear metre.

Heat recovery units instead of vents, long duct runs with an inline fan and work in a finished apartment cost more. A renovation from frame costs less, because the holes and boxing are made before the finishes. The final cost is set after the survey and measurement and once the estimate is agreed.