Good ventilation around your home is essential because it allows moisture and pollutants to escape and be replaced by clean air. Well designed ventilation will cool your home in summer and let stale air out, but keep warmth in, during winter.
Draughts are a different matter – if you can feel cold air coming in around your windows and external doors, it means that warm air is also escaping.
How it works
You can improve ventilation in your home by using extractor fans or a heat recovery system. Extractor fans expel moist air from rooms by using an axial or propeller fan, which can move large volumes of air at very low pressures. Heat recovery systems change the air in your home on a regular basis (usually every two hours) – they recover lost heat and also reduce heat loss through vents and other breakout points around your home.
Draught proofing fills gaps and reduces the amount of cold air entering your home. There are several different kinds available, including brushes, foams, sealants, strips and shaped rubber or plastic.
How it's installed
Installing draught proofing is an easy DIY task, but before you go ahead with it you should consider a number of factors.
- Ventilation is as important as draught proofing – and essential if you have solid fuel fires, gas fires or a boiler with an open flue.
- It's very important to ventilate kitchens and bathrooms properly and you should consider fitting an extractor fan if condensation is a problem in these areas. You could also open a window when cooking, running hot water or drying clothes.
- You can also improve ventilation by fitting trickle vents in your window frame.
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