SOSA · The Founder Diaries · Bangalore Homes
The staircase is
doing the work
A row house is a narrow home stacked vertically, and almost every scenting mistake in one comes from treating it as a flat with stairs. The ground-floor run and the bedroom floor are two different problems, and the staircase between them is not a corridor. It is a flue.
Scent rises. In a row house that single fact decides where the machines go and how many you need.
Part of the SOSA guides for Bangalore homes. See also पवन Pawan for a single room, and वायु Vaayu for a connected volume.
The answer in 30 seconds
What does a row house actually need?
- One zone device downstairs. The living, dining and kitchen run on the ground floor is usually one connected volume with the stair mouth opening off it.₹12,499
- One room device in the master. Upstairs bedrooms sit behind doors, which is a room problem, not a zone problem.₹6,999
- Together, ₹19,498. Against ₹24,998 for two zone devices, which is ₹5,500 more to put a machine built for a thousand cubic metres into a bedroom.₹19,498
- Do not put the downstairs machine near the stairs. That is the single most common error in this format, and it empties the ground floor into the stairwell.
Why a row house is not a flat with stairs
A row house is narrow, deep and tall. The ground floor is usually one run — entrance, living, dining, kitchen — with few internal doors and a staircase rising out of it, often open on one side. Upstairs there are two or three bedrooms behind doors, and above that sometimes a family room and a terrace. That shape is specific, and it behaves in a way an apartment does not.
Warm air rises, and scented air goes with it. In a flat, a machine placed in the living room fills a volume that is broadly horizontal and stays put. In a row house, the stairwell is a continuous vertical opening off the main living volume, so a share of everything you diffuse downstairs leaves the room you meant to scent and arrives on the first-floor landing. Two things follow. The ground floor reads thinner than its cubic figure suggests. And the landing — a space nobody chose to scent — often smells stronger than the living room.
Meanwhile the bedrooms get nothing, because they are behind closed doors and the stairwell delivers to the landing, not through them. So the common complaint in this format is oddly specific: the hall smells lovely, the living room is faint, and the bedroom smells of nothing at all. That is not an underpowered machine. That is a machine in the wrong place doing exactly what physics says it will.
| What it means for the plan | |
|---|---|
| The ground run | Measure entrance, living, dining and kitchen as one volume: internal length by width by ceiling height, in metres. This is the figure that matters, not the built-up or saleable area on your agreement. |
| The stair mouth | Treat it as an opening that loses air upward, not as part of the room. Place the zone device away from it — deeper into the living volume, with the stairwell behind you rather than in front. |
| The landing | Usually needs nothing. It is receiving scent from below whether you plan it or not, and adding a device here is how a home starts to smell heavy. |
| The bedrooms | Each is a separate room problem. पवन Pawan is published for one suitable room up to about 500 sq ft and plugs straight into the wall, which suits a bedroom with no spare surface. |
| The terrace | Outside the scope of either machine. Both are rated for indoor use, and open air dilutes faster than any device can fill it. |
The arithmetic, laid out
One of each: ₹19,498
A zone device on the ground run at ₹12,499 and a room device in the master at ₹6,999. Each machine is doing the job it is published for, and the two take the same waterless oils, so the house keeps one set of refills rather than two.
Two zone devices: ₹24,998
₹5,500 more, and the second machine ends up in a bedroom where its published capacity exceeds the room many times over. The usual result is not a better bedroom but an over-scented one, which the person sleeping there stops noticing inside a fortnight while guests notice at the door.
Two room devices: ₹13,998
Cheaper, and the configuration I see fail most often in this format. Two room devices on an open ground-floor run do not add up to zone coverage; they produce two pleasant pockets with thinner air between them, and the stairwell keeps drawing from both. Coverage is not additive.
“The hall smells wonderful, the living room is faint, the bedroom smells of nothing. That is placement, not power.”
Working it out for your own house
- Measure the ground run in metres. Length by width by ceiling height, internal. Write down the cubic figure. Ignore the area on your sale agreement.
- Stand at the stair mouth and look back. Whatever you can see from there is what the stairwell can draw from. Place the zone device outside that line of sight.
- Count the bedroom doors that move daily. In a three-bedroom row house this is usually one or two, not three.
- Put one zone device downstairs and one room device in the master. Then stop, and live with it for a month before adding anything.
- Run both on timers, not continuously. Short windows before you are home and in the evening read fresher than constant output, because a nose re-registers a change.
- Judge it from the front door. Walk in from outside. Your own nose indoors has already adapted and is the least reliable instrument in the house.
वायु and पवन · one of each
A zone device for the run, a room device for the room
वायु Vaayu breaks undiluted oil into a dry mist with cold air — no water, no heat, no residue on joinery or upholstery. published for up to 1,000 m³ of a suitable connected zone · waterless · freestanding, wall-mounted or into an HVAC return · 400 ml tank · app and timer · key-lock · under 38 dB.
पवन Pawan plugs straight into a wall socket, takes no surface, and is silent, which is what makes it a bedroom device rather than a small living-room one. one room up to about 500 sq ft · plugs straight into the socket · silent · app and timer · 200 ml of oil included · 1-year warranty.
Both take the same SOSA waterless oils, so a paired house keeps one set of refills: ₹1,049 for 100 g, ₹1,849 for 300 g.
वायु Vaayu ₹12,499, ₹12,999 hotel-inspired · पवन Pawan ₹6,999 · the pairing ₹19,498
See वायु VaayuSee पवन PawanRow-house communities around Bangalore
Row houses sit in a particular band of the city. The Hennur Road corridor has several — Assetz Soul & Soil, Sattva Northland, Sattva La Vita, NCC Urban Retreat and Radiance Gardenia among them. North towards the airport there is Sobha Oakshire at Devanahalli and The Roots at Sadahalli. East and southeast, SOBHA Galera near Whitefield, Godrej Florenne on Soukya Road, Shriram Chirping Grove and Assetz Leaves & Lives around Sarjapur, and Sobha Crystal Meadows at Mullur.
These are named as examples of the format, not as installations: plans differ between communities and between phases of the same community, and the only figure worth planning around is the one you measure in your own house. SOSA has no affiliation with any of them.
Questions, answered
Can one machine do the whole row house?
Where exactly should the downstairs machine go?
My landing smells stronger than my living room. Why?
Should the upstairs bedrooms each get a device?
Do the two machines need the same scent?
Will either machine help with a kitchen smell on the ground floor?
Can I use a Vaayu outside on the terrace?
Continue in the SOSA guides
If you would rather ask a person
Send the ground run and the stair position
Give us the ground-floor run in metres and tell us where the staircase rises from it. That is enough for us to say where the machine should stand — and whether you need the second one at all.
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