Residential complex in Mühldorf am Inn

Ecksberg Foundation opts for a central controller and multi-room solution from Meltem

The Ecksberg Foundation has been involved with supporting people with disabilities for more than 150 years. In 2024, a new residential home was built. Here, a healthy room climate is maintained around the clock using app-controlled comfort ventilation units from Meltem. 

 

Assistance and support 
The Ecksberg Foundation in Mühldorf am Inn can look back over 150 years of existence. This makes it the oldest institution for people with learning, physical and mental disabilities in Bavaria and, at the same time, the oldest catholic institution for disabled people in Germany. In 1852, the priest Joseph Probst became the carer for six disabled children in Ecksberg and moved with them into the empty benefice house. To support these children he established a specific association which had up to 10,000 members at times. By 1884, the year of the founder’s death, the institution was already caring for 200 people, with more to come. The organisation’s work came to a stop during the Nazi dictatorship, however. Sadly, the majority of the residents lost their lives during this period due to the policies of those in power. The foundation’s building acted as a military hospital and then, after the War, was used to accommodate former inmates of the liberated Mettenheim concentration camp. 

In 1949, the organisation was able to resume its work. The foundation has continued the cause of caring for and supporting people with disabilities to this day.

Contemporary living with individual support 
A new, modern residential complex with three buildings was recently constructed in Mühldorf am Inn. Joseph House, named after the founder, Joseph Probst, was built on the old recreation ground.

It has space for 81 permanent residents, who live in nine residential groups. Planning for the building was entrusted to Herbert Friedl (the Ecksberg Foundation’s architect) and residential programme manager, Josef Kammergruber. Joseph House consists of three individual blocks which are interconnected by structures containing the staircases and lifts. Three stories each provide space for three residential units, each with nine residents. Every resident has a private room with their own bathroom.

 

On each floor there are also communal areas for eating and relaxing, a kitchen, plus offices and administration rooms. The building is heated via a district heating system which is primarily powered by a wood chip boiler. The individual rooms have underfloor heating.

The planning had to meet the standards of DIN 18040 on accessibility and the regulations concerning minimum building standards for residential homes (Heimmindestbauverordnung). DIN 1946-6 concerning compliance with the minimum air renewal rate also played an important role. This required the provision of an automatic ventilation system designed to prevent moisture damage due to excessive atmospheric humidity while also achieving appropriate comfort levels. So a ventilation solution from Meltem was adopted; the units are installed in the residential units and are controlled by app.

 

In total, 127 type M-WRG-II E-F units were installed in the residential units, bathrooms and social areas. In the residential complex, the comfort ventilation units were configured as a multi-room solution which guarantees both supply and extract air at the same time in the individual rooms.

Ingenious distribution of units in every second bathroom 
Each residential unit consists of a living and sleeping area and a bathroom. The bathrooms act as extract air rooms, while the living areas are the supply air rooms.

The comfort ventilation units are designed to be installed in the bathrooms. However, only in every second residential unit is the bathroom on the outside of the building. Since the ventilation units need to be installed in the external wall, those bathrooms located on the outside were simply fitted with two units. Every second unit is now responsible for ventilation of the adjacent residential unit. The air is routed via flexible pipes which run under the suspended ceilings. From one of the two devices, these pipes run inside the same residential unit, while the pipes from the other device run into the adjacent residential unit.

 

Cost-effective and intelligent multi-room solution
At Joseph House, an efficient multi-room solution was implemented for the ventilation system. This means that multiple rooms within a residential unit are supplied with just one decentralised ventilation unit.

For this to be possible, the rooms must be adjacent and there must be a supply air room and an extract air room – in this case the living area and the bathroom. Between the two rooms, there must be an interconnected air system, for example in the form of non-closable overflow openings in the doors. The incoming fresh air enters the supply air room (in this case the living area). The used extract air is then extracted in the bathroom via the flexible pipes from the ventilation unit. The distance between the unit and extract air room must not exceed 10 m, however.

User-friendly app-based control
All 127 ventilation units can be controlled with the Meltem app from a single mobile device. This allows the settings to be changed individually for each residential unit as required. The units are addressed via 18 gateways in total.

 

To guarantee a wireless connection at all times, two gateways were installed per residential block and 6 to 8 units were connected to each gateway. This was necessary because of the internal reinforced steel wall construction. Metal reduces the range of electronic signals. Without this interference, up to 15 units could be integrated into the app per gateway.

 

Summary
The Ecksberg Foundation’s Joseph House, a residential complex for people with learning difficulties, demonstrates that decentralised room ventilation solutions with heat recovery are now a fixed component of modern building fittings. The ease of installation and project-specific design enable it to be readily adapted to suit requirements. Even special solutions such as the installation of two units next to one another to supply two residential units as implemented in Mühldorf am Inn are now possible. As well as reducing heating costs, ventilation units from Meltem help to continuously improve the air quality in rooms and thus enhance living comfort, even for people who remain inside the building for most of the time.