Old house air vents Help and information on all topics relating to your central heating, air conditioning and ventilation issues.

[LJH]

Hi all,
I'm new here so forgive me if I get something wrong.
I have an old 1930's house that still has old room vents on the bedroom walls. They're the big old ugly angled out type and let in huge cold draughts.
Please could anyone advise how I go about taking these off and what to replace them with?
Does a house even need them now with the advent of central heating and a self enclosed electric fire instead of a fire that uses the chimney.?
Please could someone give me a bit of advice?
Thanks

[stoneyboy]

Hi ljh,
Whether these vents are still necessary will depend on your lifestyle eg do you dry clothes in the bedrooms, are the window always closed and do they have trickle vents.
You could try sealing them up by fitting hit and miss grilles in place of the Louvre type vents. This will allow you to open and close them to allow ventilation or not. Take care when removing the vents because they may be an asbestos based casting.
Regards S

[ericmark]

If anything we need vents now more than ever, we fit double glazing which removes the dehumidifying effect of the windows, however we clearly do not want drafts, and so it depends on the location, this house we are sheltered from high winds, but start point is look at humidity in the home, today in my bedroom 19.9ºC and 60% humidity, living room 17.7ºC and 65% humidity so in general house resonantly low humidity so could afford to block vents.

Old house was more like 75% humidity and really needed more ventilation, father-in-law house getting to 85% and clearly needed more ventilation likely problem was triple glazing.

Heat recovery units likely best answer, but it varies so much house to house even next door but one as my father-in-law was, you have to look at your house and what the humidity is like.