Do you leave them open in winter to allow some fresh air into the house?Or shut them to save on heating bills.I only have 3 but can’t decide what to do with them.Usually if the wind is blowing in I shut them!Thanks for any help.

I think I’ll watch this with interest. 😀
Do you have a link to, or a photo of the offending item?

Apparently it’s most efficient to vent the house heavily for short periods of time rather than using trickle vents most of the time. Makes sense because then you change the air in the house quickly, and that air holds little heat. Vent slowly and the heat has time to leave the solid objects in the house.

Surely it depends on how much condensation you get, if any. We have (had) some wholly unnecessary vents in our old draughty house. Quickly blocked them up!

What kind of vents are we talking here? A modern house if designed correctly will have ventilation where required.

A new build house is rather different to an older house – you need to get rid of all the water they used in building the thing so expect damp and mould in cupboards for the first year if you don’t ventilate it well.

Also a new build house will have been air leakage pressure tested, so should in theory be relatively air tight, so use those trickle vents

Also a new build house will have been air leakage pressure tested, so should in theory be relatively air tight, so use those trickle vents

I’ve seen a house pass an air leakage test with one of the external doors open so I wouldn’t hold too much store by that

If your getting cold close them and install a “nuaire dry master” in the loft. Absolutely amazing little machines, really changed our 120yr old house. The nuaire are strange in that they do not really cool the house either, but made ours bone dry.

All about moisture management – get a hygrometer, £5 on amazon, we spent £8. You want 40-55% to avoid mould, condensation etc.

We’re happy if ours is less than 65% – old house, got some work to do on drainage outside.

Trickle vents tend just to loose warm air, the cooler damp air sits lower. The drimasters are very effective as they push out the cooler damp air. Worked way better than any vents I opened/installed.

In ours we leave the bedroom ones open on a night (when most condensation is created through 2 people’s breathing and cold windows combination) and the living area ones are generally open unless the wind direction is blowing straight in to them.
That being said, even when they’re closed there’s no kind of seal on them, just a hard plastic cover blocking about 98% of the hole.

Trickle vents tend just to loose warm air, the cooler damp air sits lower.

But it’s the warm air that holds more moisture?

But it’s the warm air that holds more moisture?

Not if he lives in Lancs.
If it’s pure vent (not cooling), is it supply or extract?
If it’s pure vent, I wouldn’t use as it’s going to fill the room with cold air.
If it’s pure vent,is there an option for tempering the air?
What is it?
What is it supposed to be doing?
What do you expect it to do?
What are the expected consequences of not using it?

Trickle vents are a shitty UK solution to enable builders to avoid building houses properly. A modern double (or triple) glazed window, with high quality seals, and then effectively a small hole is deliberately added. Nowhere else in the world does it that I”m aware of.

The *right* solution is to control the ventilation – ie make the house properly airtight and have a heat recovery ventilation unit that puts air into every room (and extracts from those that create moisture) at a set level.

The traditional European solution is to ventilate the house properly each day by opening the windows. I wonder whether it works as well in our damp climate as it does in cold dry Northern Europe?

The traditional European solution is to ventilate the house properly each day by opening the windows.

That’s what we do, leave most of Sashes locked at 2″ open during the day and shut them all when we get back from work.

How does the heat recovery vent work? I assume it’s ceiling mounted then filters into the loft space? Will one unit do to ventilate the entire house?

As “simons” says above; trickle vents are poor. They let the warm air out so lower the dew point and can cause condensation to remain or get worse. The answer is heat recovery unit or a nuaire drimaster.

Our house is 5 years old. Other than the trickle vents in the bathroom we don’t really open them as we’ve found it better to open some of the windows a fraction with the catch on during the the day.

That’s what we do, leave most of Sashes locked at 2″ open during the day and shut them all when we get back from work.

According to the experts here in Germany that is an inefficient way of controlling moisture in the house. They always recommend the windows wide open for 10 minutes or more.

According to the experts here in Germany that is an inefficient way of controlling moisture in the house. They always recommend the windows wide open for 10 minutes or more.

Quite possibly, but it does work well and the house always smells fresh for it. Heating bills are small enough not to worry about.

That’s what we do, leave most of Sashes locked at 2″ open during the day and shut them all when we get back from work.

That’s going to get the house really cold – the euro way is to open all the windows wide but for a short while. The aim is to get all the damp air from overnight out and replace it with cool (dry) outside air. Once you shut the windows the fabric of the house will quickly warm up the cold air you’ve just let in.

How does the heat recovery vent work?

http://www.paulheatrecovery.co.uk/ has a picture on the front page that pretty much explains it.