Why Trickle Vents Should Never Be Overlooked During Property Inspections
Damp and mould are one of the most common problems in properties when it comes to housing disrepair, so proper ventilation is essential. However, modern properties are also designed to be well insulated and energy efficient, which reduces heat loss but can limit natural air flow.
Striking the right balance between retaining warmth and providing adequate ventilation can therefore be challenging. Trickle vents are one solution, helping to improve air circulation without significantly affecting energy efficiency. To ensure they continue to perform as intended, it is important that they are regularly checked and monitored.
What is a trickle vent?
A trickle vent is an innovative solution to how we can balance the idea of removing stale air and ventilating a property, with retaining heat and effectively insulating a property. Trickle vents are built into a small slot in window and door frames and act as a small, controllable ventilator. They provide ‘background ventilation’ by allowing a constant, passive flow of fresh air to circulate within a property, but not to the extent that you will notice heat loss or discomfort. This is because the trickle vent is adjustable, and is protected on the outside, to ensure rain, insects or debris can’t get into the property.
So even when your windows are completely shut, trickle vents are working to remove excess moisture to prevent condensation forming, which contributes to damp and mould if it is allowed to settle in a room. This means on a cold day when you would not ordinarily want to open your windows to ventilate your property, the trickle vent is doing this for you, albeit slowly. Most trickle vents have an adjustable section on the inside, which allows you to shut off the airflow if you want to.
Why are trickle vents important?
Modern homes have to be well insulated, and even if you don’t live in a modern property, you may have modern windows fitted, which are also designed to be airtight to improve energy efficiency. This helps to keep the home warm and comfortable and helps to keep your energy bills down, but it doesn’t help with ventilating the property. Stale air and moisture get trapped because the inside of your home is essentially airtight. Daily activities such as showering, cooking and even just a family sitting around watching television, generates moisture and stale air which has nowhere to go. Instead it settles on cold surfaces such as walls, and if left can start to develop damp and mould.
Trickle vents enable you to maintain a good level of indoor air quality without losing any heat or compromising your energy efficiency, and protect your property from damp and mould. They also allow you to ventilate the property with the windows completely shut and secured, and hence removes a potential security risk. Trickle vents are also important because they help a property comply with the UK Building Regulations (Approved Document F), which, since June 2022, requires ventilation measures (such as trickle vents) in replacement windows.
Trickle vents in property inspections
Although trickle vents are a part of legal compliance for a property, if you are inspecting a property as part of a housing condition report in relation to a housing disrepair dispute for damp and mould, you are looking to see what the landlord has provided in terms of trickle vents, and how the tenant is using them.
Missing – If there are no trickle vents at all in the windows, you need to check when the windows were installed and whether they therefore comply with the building regulations. It is possible that the landlord is not providing trickle vents when they should be.
Covered over – In some cases trickle vents may have been painted over, or are blocked, and hence are ineffective. This means the landlord is not providing the means for ‘background ventilation’, which could be a contributory factor in developing damp and mould. In an inspection you should open and close the vents to check they are fully operational.
Closed – It is possible that the adjustable vent has been closed by the tenant, or the landlord, and hence they are not contributing to the ventilation of the property as well as they could be. If the vent is closed, you need to ask questions to understand how often this is the case, and who has done it.
Test – In an inspection you could use an anemometer to check for airflow from the trickle vent, to confirm whether it is effective in removing stale air and moisture from the property.
It is essential that trickle vents are not overlooked in a property inspection, and that they are included in a standard checklist which seeks to identify all the possible sources of a disrepair problem. In the case of damp and mould, trickle vents are an important factor in preventing this and therefore, management of them needs to come under close scrutiny during an inspection.
For professional housing condition reporting, contact our team at Redfearn Experts today.
