A Guide to Trickle Vents
Trickle Vents
Trickle vents, head vents, night vents… slot vents… Call them what you will, they are often the Marmite of the double glazing world. People either love them or hate them. Whatever your feelings they serve a purpose though. We’ve put together a brief guide to save you losing your head over them.
What is A Trickle Vent?
In basic terms, when a window is manufactured, a slot is drilled into the plastic frame, and a cover is placed over it. The cover has a control on it which allows you to open and close the slot at will to let air gradually trickle into your home.
Types of Trickle Vents
Through Frame Design: This is where the trickle vents are often positioned through the head of the frame.
Over-Frame Design: When the trickle vent cannot fit through the frame, ventilation is routed over the frame or head of the window.
Glazed In: The trickle vent is fitted into the glazed area along the top of the sealed glass unit.
Framing Materials: Trickle vents can be fitted in all types of framing materials, such as UPVC, timber, steel and aluminium.
Window Replacement For Effective Ventilation
If you are replacing your windows and your old windows have trickle vents installed, you will have to have replacement windows with trickle vents to comply with Building Regulations. Trickle vents help combat damp and moisture problems in your property, ensuring your home is extremely well ventilated.
Why Do We Need Trickle Vents?
In recent years, the drive has been more focused on increasing the energy efficiency of our homes. But while we have been busy making sure our homes don’t leak too much energy, we have also made them more airtight, which can have a bad effect on the air quality inside your home and contribute to problems with condensation.
Although we want to keep our homes warm and avoid draughts, we actually need a certain level of ventilation to provide a healthy and comfortable internal environment. So, before, when we had draughty old windows that would let in a breeze, we didn’t need to have trickle vents. Now that we have new windows with better seals against the elements, we need to find a way to allow a change of air within our homes.
There are three main kinds of ventilation:
Purge: When we want to circulate the air within our home rapidly, this is when we open a window.
Extraction: If you have a room where occasionally it is exposed to air pollutants, and you want to control it when it is ventilated. For example, when you turn on your extractor fan in a kitchen or bathroom.
Background: This is a small ventilation opening that allows the air to circulate slowly, and it is your trickle vent.
The main purpose of ventilation is to remove polluted air from your home and replace it with fresh air from the outside. Ventilation of your home is necessary to provide a healthy and comfortable environment.
Trickle Vents & Window Security
An open window can leave your home vulnerable to a break in, providing an easy point of entry. Window trickle vents provide a consistent supply of ventilation without compromising your home security. You can benefit from fresh air while leaving your window locked in a closed position.
Reduce Condensation With Trickle Vents
If your windows do not have trickle vents and you are replacing them then you don’t have to have trickle vents installed. However, you might like to consider them if you:
- Find your home stuffy,
- Have problems with condensation,
- Or would like to increase ventilation within, for example, a bathroom or kitchen.
All new houses and extensions must now have trickle vents fitted as standard to comply with building regulations. So, if you are buying new windows for this purpose, you will need to bear this in mind.
uPVC Trickle Vents
Lastly, it is sometimes possible to retrospectively fit trickle vents to existing plastic windows. So, if you are experiencing a problem with condensation and do not have a form of background ventilation, you could consider fitting trickle vents to your existing uPVC windows. It can be a time-consuming and tricky job, but it might be worth it if it could alleviate your problems.
Get In Touch For A Full Window Installation Service
Starglaze offers a full window installation service, including the fitting of trickle vents with our double-glazed windows. For more information, please use our online enquiry form or call us on 01522 512020.