Trickle vents - help reduce mould?

[craig1912]

Bluebarge said:

They go in the loft and a large vent is fitted in the ceiling below. They work by sucking air from the (hopefully vented) loft and pushing it down through the house and out of the windows/doors etc. The need for the heater element is that lofts can be bloody cold in winter so you will be forcing cold air into the house.

Mines a heated one- air is still cool but it just affects the hall stairs and landing. If other rooms are cold it will probably need turning down a bit so there is less airflow. Just a little experimenting is needed to get it set up right.

[AlexC1981]

Is equipment really necessary? Whenever I get beads of moisture build up in the corners of my windows I open a window for 5 or 10 minutes to let the moisture in the air equalise with the outside. Seems to do the trick.

[caziques]

To some extent, mould is the sign of a well built house.

Houses that are sealed up tight really require mechanical ventilation - and this in turn should be a heat recovery type - with two fans and a heat exchanger.

Positive Pressure systems, that simply pump air in from the roof space, are pretty desperate things in winter. Adding a heater simply pushes up power bills.

Have a look at: http://www.titon.co.uk/pages/products/ventilation-... for a proper device.
Fresh air coming into the house, with heat being recovered when appropriate.

[Bill]

We run a dehumidifier 24/7 (if moisture levels are high enough for it to switch on) on a landing. Reducing the background moisture has made a big difference to condensation and consequently mold.

[manic47]

Same here - we run a couple of medium sized Ebac dehumidifiers, one per floor.
They solved all the condensation and mouldy window frame problems pretty much instantly.

As a bonus, clothes dry pretty quickly on the airer in the utility room - used as the other half hates tumble dryers.

[Muncher]

craig1912 said:

We had one of these fitted a couple of years ago and they work. The hall/ landing area is a little cooler but no condensation issues.

My parents have similar and it's very effective.

[HotJambalaya]

Quite fascinated by this PIV thing, like the op had never heard of it. I will also be calling them. Given how the work I assume they'd be quite a good combo with trickle vents.

Coker, you've ordered one? When does it come?

[Bluebarge]

caziques said:

To some extent, mould is the sign of a well built house.

Houses that are sealed up tight really require mechanical ventilation - and this in turn should be a heat recovery type - with two fans and a heat exchanger.

Positive Pressure systems, that simply pump air in from the roof space, are pretty desperate things in winter. Adding a heater simply pushes up power bills.

Have a look at: http://www.titon.co.uk/pages/products/ventilation-... for a proper device.
Fresh air coming into the house, with heat being recovered when appropriate.

That looks like a very expensive retrofit.

[steveo3002]

is the piv thing a modern mechanical version of a draft? doesnt it just blow all the heat out ?

[northwest monkey]

I've used black hole vents to ventilate bedrooms in my rentals. They work very well indeed & don't seem to cause any problems with draughts etc. I used to have problems with "damp" (tenants not opening windows) & now I don't.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/127mm-BLACK-VENTILATOR-ANT...

[DodgeeDave]

steveo3002 said:

is the piv thing a modern mechanical version of a draft? doesnt it just blow all the heat out ?

I agree with this, you may as well just open your windows.

[defblade]

steveo3002 said:

is the piv thing a modern mechanical version of a draft? doesnt it just blow all the heat out ?

Kinda.

Yes, it's introducing colder (usually. You do get solar gain in the roof space, not to mention not all attics are insulated 100%, so another way of looking at it is as a very basic heat recovery system ) air to the house; but believe you me the benefits to living in a dry, mould free house, for us, far outweigh the slightly raised heating costs. As I've said before, it feels rather like a window has been left open on the landing. The heating costs are also somewhat balanced by the reduced wattage vs running 2 dehumidifiers 24/7.

Long/short of it is that it's not perfect, but we love ours and wish we'd heard of them years ago.

[Muncher]

DodgeeDave said:

I agree with this, you may as well just open your windows.

It's nowhere near as effective as having a window open, my parents always left one or two windows open but the windows were still streaming with condensation the next morning, since they've had this thing fitted there hasn't been a drop on any window. As mentioned the air in the loft isn't quite as cold as outside and I suspect it may be less humid too. The ones with an integrated heater also help a little too so the draft is less noticeable.

If you open a window it will also make that room noticeably colder, whereas on an upstairs landing the effect is less noticeably and doesn't matter as much there.

[H.....]

DodgeeDave said:

steveo3002 said:

is the piv thing a modern mechanical version of a draft? doesnt it just blow all the heat out ?

I agree with this, you may as well just open your windows.

LOL. The 'draft' caused by a PIV system is tiny, you'll never notice it if the system is setup properly for your property. You could open window but that will only have an effect in the room that the window is in, the PIV pushes a tiny amount of air out of every gap, so all the rooms benefit from it.

Seriously, if they caused a draft Madame would switch it off pronto.

[herewego]

I expect the PIV is designed for a well sealed home, so draught proofed windows and doors also no chimneys. A chimney will ventilate the house on its own, a PIV fan will just increase the airflow. A heat recovery ventilation system has to be better than just PIV.
The first thing to do if there are damp problems is eliminate sources of moisture.

[MajorProblem]

I live in a 200+ yr old solid walled house and a PIV system is pretty much the only way to get rid of condensation, it is impossible to eliminate all causes especially with single glazed windows etc

[V8A*ndy]

herewego said:

I expect the PIV is designed for a well sealed home, so draught proofed windows and doors also no chimneys. A chimney will ventilate the house on its own, a PIV fan will just increase the airflow. A heat recovery ventilation system has to be better than just PIV.
The first thing to do if there are damp problems is eliminate sources of moisture.

This is were I fail to understand why these things were fitted to all the homes in our development.

The building firm even won some sort of award for the design of these houses. When I first viewed the previous owner explained what the "thing in the ceiling was" as I never seen such a device.

Then I noticed an open gas fire with chimney and a ruddy great hole in the wall due to gas fire regs, which didn't make sense.

The first winter there and the PIV was turned off and sealed up. House was fecking freezing.

[Coker]

HotJambalaya said:

Quite fascinated by this PIV thing, like the op had never heard of it. I will also be calling them. Given how the work I assume they'd be quite a good combo with trickle vents.

Coker, you've ordered one? When does it come?

Sorry for the late response, I've not checked back in here in a few days.

I ordered directly from Nuaire. I phoned them at about 4pm and the unit was with me by lunch time the following day! Great service.

However, after discussing this issue with a friend of mine, who is very interested by the whole thing and waiting on the results of my installation before ordering his own, he then found the exact same heated unit on Amazon for £328 delivered. Nuaire charged £383. I phoned Nuaire back and bizarrely they told me that they cannot price match! So they arranged for a courier to come and collect FOC and I ordered the Amazon unit, which arrived this morning (ordered on Monday).

Here's the Amazon link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nuaire-Drimaster-With-Heat...


I also got the humidity monitor set up... 86-88% in our bedroom in the mornings! Now wonder we have mold issues...

Sparky coming this weekend to fit the unit.



edit: RE: the comments about opening the window... Surprisingly enough, we did think of that. Fine when it's not cold, not an option when it is. We get puddles on the window sill. Even on the moderate nights when we can have the windows "on the catch", we still get windows swimming in water. If we're going to continually ruin wallpaper and curtains and have moldy patches on the ceiling, then I'm willing to give the Drimaster a whirl.

Edited by Coker on Wednesday 21st October 22:59

[Sleepers]

Coker said:

We're getting mould appearing around our bedroom windows, and in small areas elsewhere in the bedroom. The room was redecorated after we moved in about a year ago, and previous mould was treated, cleaned up etc, and now it's recurring it's buggering our wallpaper and curtains up.

I'm assuming this is some sort of circulation issue, and is caused mostly at night by the heat/moisture of us breathing whilst asleep?

Our uPVC windows don't have any vents, and I'm told retrofitting trickle vents might help. Is this correct? Or am I better of fitting a whole new window unit?


Any advice appreciated, cheers.

Sounds familiar.

Our old house had UPVC sash windows installed by the previous occupier with no trickle vents and suffered the issue you mention.

We just contacted a local window company who retro fitted trickle vents on all the windows for peanuts.

Immediately the house felt so much healthier with issues sorted

Cheers

[SVS]

How easy are trickle vents to DIY retrofit to PVC windows? It looks easy, but I've heard otherwise