Closing/blocking a bedroom wall vent?

Famous Blue Raincoat

Once again I'm dying with a headache, sore throat and general cold and this is affecting my energy for work and other things. It never happens in the summer but when the weather gets cold, it's relentless when I sleep in this room (every night). In the summer I can leave the windows open all night and it's fine. Last night, with all windows closed, a strong cold air was coming through the vent.

I'm in a recently renovated house with a B1 BER. The upstairs bedroom vent, as with the others, is just a hole covered by a sliding plastic vent "cover" - which you're supposed to slide shut, but there's no difference when you do. The house has wall vents in each room, and in the downstairs sitting room there is a vent in the inset stove itself and a permanently open vent in the wall of that same sitting room. There's no MVHR or any such thing in the house.

What can I do to prevent this cold air coming through the wall vent in the main bedroom, without damaging other parts of the house? Thank you.

c.p.w.g.w

Isn't there like negative pressure vent incerts...

They allow moisture to exit the room, but they don't allow anything throw from the outside... don't know if these are used with whole ventilation strategy with other mechanisms...

But I have a bedroom currently without vents, and it has terrible problems with mould, and the window is open 12 hours a day, and still problems persist, was told it was entirely down to lack of ventilation...

Thankfully we are only in this house for a few more days

Famous Blue Raincoat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119569088#Comment_119569088

Thanks. Yes, I want to avoid that but I don't want to be floored by the cold nights either. I never heard of negative pressure vent inserts so I'll google them now.

DeKing

Looking into this myself when I bought my house all the vents were stuffed with old towels/clothes! Removed them but the cold air was noticeable in winter.

Maybe something like this would be a solution?

https://munsterdiy.com/products/100mm-internal-vent-cover

This would seem to be a better solution but I believe each of these units cost around the 150/200 mark

https://ermensystems.ie/de-centralised-mvhr/

Failing that if you don't want to spend money on it just block up the vents but make sure you open windows for an hour or two every day to prevent issues with mould.

whizbang

 I'm dying with a headache, sore throat and general cold 

You dont get this from too much fresh air.

Whats your heating system ?

greasepalm

In a passageway i get a draught coming into the kitchen in through the closed vent about 10 inch and will remove it and fix a J cloth under the vent to limit flow.

Its a simple thing you can try and and see if it works.

Mellor

Once again I'm dying with a headache, sore throat and general cold and this is affecting my energy for work and other things. It never happens in the summer but when the weather gets cold

Being cold, doesn't cause colds. Nor does being wet. This are things your granny said that believe without thinking about. Colds are more prevalent in winter because virus are more prevalent.

Removing sir circulation would like make health problems worse.

greasepalm

Forgot to mention buy yourself a bottle of Vicks First Defence and a few squirts up your nose before the sore throat takes will stop a cold dead.

endacl

Heavier duvet + woolly hat

shoegirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119577402#Comment_119577402

Correct - all symptoms of poor levels of oxygen in the air. The place will start to smell on top of that. The other problem is that whatever you're using to block air will collect condensation, mould and rot, and spores from that can travel back into your home. If you are a homeowner look at SEAI grants for Attic and wall insulation and if you are a tenant, complain to the landlord. I had a bad experience in a previous home where a boiler wasn't properly reconnected back to the external flue previous to my moving in. I got it serviced and the problem was discovered and rectified - I had been constantly exhausted and getting mild but persistent headaches. Entirely solved just by this alone - trust me there's worse things coming into your home than fresh air.

C3PO

As others have mentioned - you won’t get a cold from fresh air!

FlipperThePriest

New research suggests a significant drop in temperature in the nose is enough to reduce immune response responsible for fighting off viruses. Maybe granny was on to something. The new myth could be 'being stuck indoors'.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/12/221206083120.htm

Of course that said, fresh air still important in the house.

J_1980

I stuffed my vent with rockwool and use a dehumidifier instead a few hours a day.

zero mould , even around the bathtub silicone and it’s easy to keep the place at 21-23 degrees daytime.

open the windows here and then for fresh air.

CPTM

You can't get a cold or flu virus from cold air alone obviously. But when they did that study, they didn't consider that if you already have a cold or flu virus, which we basically all have at this time of year, the symptoms of that virus can be exasperated by stresses put on the body which can be anything to strenuous physical activity, lack of sleep, bereavement, or extreme hot and cold environments. The OP might not have gotten sick from the cold air, but we know anecdotally that if you do pick up a virus, you need to rest up comfortably in order to fight it off. Perhaps if the room were warmer, and they were more comfortable, they could have woken up with less symptoms. Or they might have fought off the virus faster during the night.

Nonetheless, people see viruses and cold air as two separate things and therefore bring children out into the winter winds wondering why they're all coughing and sniffling when they get back inside.

Anyways, we bought an adjustable vent off Amazon that you can close. There's a strong cold air that hits the house every now and then so on certain nights we can adjust the amount of airflow that comes through.