Maintain your Air Return Vents!
After you have installed your cold air return vents, it's easy to forget about them and just get on with life. STOP! In order for your rooms to continue breathing freely with the ventilation that has been achieved by fitting these cold air return vents, you will need to mark a little regular maintenance into your calendar. Don't worry, upkeep is a quick and simple procedure but important nonetheless. If there's not enough outdoor air entering a home, pollutants can sometimes accumulate to levels that can pose health and comfort problems indoors, so you can see the importance of keeping the apertures and ventilation grilles clear so that they can breathe freely.
So your typical cold air return vents are such simple devices yet the benefits they can produce are unbelievable when you think about what they can do, how easy they can be installed, and their incredibly low retail cost. As per the previous paragraphs, poor ventilation in a home, or any building where people spend a lot of time, can be a real danger to health and cannot be emphasised strongly enough. If your home has inadequate ventilation then you must get cold air return vents fitted as soon as possible.
As you can probably work out from the above, not having cold air return vents or some form of ventilation in poorly ventilated rooms is not so much a choice but a necessity. Living with mildew and damp air is a big problem and can have harmful health effects on the inhabitants. Cold air return vents are generally place low down, and above the skirting boards, and do not look unsightly or stand out, when blended in with the rooms overall theme.
So don't despair if your air return vents are looking a little ugly and messing up the décor of your living spaces. A lot of people don't know this, but it is possible to paint plastic cold air return vents and have the paint stick. The secret is to very lightly abraise the surface with some fine wet and dry paper. After you have washed it and dried it thoroughly, you need to carefully apply a couple of coats of white gloss undercoat (don't forget to allow plenty of drying time between coats). Be careful not to get runs down the slats. Once dry, you can apply any paint to the vent, be it emulsion, gloss, eggshell or acrylic. In other words, oil or water based products. Just use a colour that agrees with the scheme of your room, and you won't even know they're there.
Nowadays, it's also quite possible to buy attractive cold air return vents. Can you believe that? Something that has, up until recently, been considered an ugly yet necessary evil in certain homes, can now be displayed as an ornate fixture to the walls of any room (see 3 examples below)
Ornate Vent Covers for Homes. Attractive Wall Vents for Rooms
As you can see from the vent cover examples above, the old drab plastics are long gone, unless you just want a cheap wall vent for little used rooms and cupboard areas of course.
If you're a dab hand at DIY and have a flare for making things, then why not design your very own ornate cold air return vents? This way you would not be restricted to the air return vents options on the high street, as nice as some of them are, and you would end up with a totally unique style that can found nowhere else.
In a perfect world, we wouldn't have any pipes, cables, wall plugs, or air vents on show in our homes, but as they're part of the household infrastructure, the best we can do is tidy them up, conceal them where possible, and blend them in to the theme of the space. Air return vents do a great job at ventilating building which have inadequate ventilation, and remember, even a cold air return vents can have their slats adjusted whenever a cold winds whips through that side of the building. If your home has trouble breathing, then cold air return vents are not an option, but a must have!
Preparing for Winter 2011
If you experienced a lot of condensation in your home during the winter last months of winter, and maybe saw the family members getting more colds and sore throats than is normal, then perhaps you'll want to look at fixing the homes ventilation this summer before the winter of 2011/12 kicks in.
How to Clean those Air Vents
You'll be peased to know that this is not a difficult job. Unscrew the air vent from the wall and wipe over with a damp rag until clean. (You might want to use a toothbrush to get in between the slats) Finally, vacuum the duct behind the air vent to finish the job and reattach the parts. That's it :)
Myth about Ventilation: Oddly enough, many people are still reluctant to install cold air return vents because they think they will create an unwelcome chilly draft during winter. This is not the case. Air ventilation is all about balancing airflow by airing, not cooling, a space.
Indoor Pollution: Did you know that poorly ventilated homes can actually have more polluted air indoors than out? It's true, and if you don't maintain (clean) your air vents periodically, this indoor pollution could actually worsen.
How Dangerous is Mildew? The tiny mildew spores are dangerous because they can leave to some pretty serious health problems, especially with long term exposure. Mildew exists because good ventilation does not. You will only breathe easy when your home does.
How to Detect Mildew? Mildew, when rampant, will stink, but it's not so easy to detect in the early stages unless you know what you're looking for. This fungus will visibly show itself as unsightly, grubby looking, marks on paints, wallpaper, and wood surfaces.
Conditions for Mildew. Although mildew can thrive in very humid summers, it's not at its most rampant at this time. The perfect conditions are found during springtime and autumn when the sun is still warm, yet the air has become cool.
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