What Size Scent System Does My Space Need?

Square footage, ceiling height and whether it runs through the vents decide it. Here is the honest sizing guide we use ourselves, with the two cases where people over-buy.

People ask us this more than anything else about the systems, and the answer is simpler than the spec sheets make it look. Three things decide the size: how much air you are scenting, whether the unit stands in a room or feeds your HVAC, and how often you want to refill it. Everything else is detail.

Start with the air, not the floor

Floor area is the number everyone has, so we use it, but what a cold-air system really scents is a volume of air. A 1,200 sq ft loft with 14-foot ceilings holds almost twice the air of a 1,200 sq ft bungalow. If your ceilings are over 10 feet, or the space is very open, treat it as one size up.

Standalone, a unit scents the room it stands in and drifts into the next. Connected to the HVAC, it scents every room the ductwork reaches, evenly, because the air handler does the carrying. Two-storey houses almost always do better on the vents; a condo or a shop floor is usually fine standalone.

The two sizes, and who they are for

The Suite (120 ml reservoir). Condos, most single-floor homes, a salon or clinic, a small office, a café — up to about 1,500 sq ft. It is the size of a hardback book; on a shelf you would not look at it twice, and on a bracket beside the furnace nobody sees it at all. A 120 ml fill at a normal daytime schedule lasts roughly four to six weeks.

The Salon (500 ml reservoir). A whole house, a restaurant, a spa, a showroom, an open-plan office — about 1,500 to 4,000 sq ft. The larger reservoir is the point: at the same schedule a fill lasts three to four months, and it can run harder for busy hours without running dry.

Above 4,000 sq ft, or several floors: an Atrium, 2.5 litres and up, sized to the air volume, ducted into the HVAC and kept on a monthly concentrate plan. Those are quoted, because a lobby and a gym of the same size need different settings.

Where people over-buy

The first mistake is buying the bigger unit "to be safe" for a small space and then running it at a whisper so it does not overwhelm. A smaller unit at a comfortable setting gives a steadier, more natural scent than a large one throttled down. The second is putting one standalone unit in a house and expecting the upstairs bedrooms to smell of it. They will not; that is what the HVAC connection is for.

What runs in it

Only 100% pure concentrate: no water, no alcohol, no reed-diffuser refill. Diluted oils clog the head and smell thin. Ours are hotel-lobby scents — Grand Foyer, Thé Blanc, Santal Vellum, Ambre Safran, Cèdre Noir, Velours Rose — and every system ships already filled with the one you choose. Not sure which? The Complete Hotel Edit has all six in 5 ml bottles; smell them first, then order the system with the winner.

How ordering works

You pay in full, we call within 48 hours to talk through the space, the scent and whether it stands alone or goes on the vents, and you can cancel in full inside those 48 hours. The unit is filled, run and checked in Toronto and ships in about three weeks from your purchase date. In the Greater Toronto Area we can also install it for you.

See both sizes, with photos of them in a room, at velourandvellum.com/systems. Businesses: scent for business.

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