In my shower room, and sounding a bit like Morrissey, there is a fan that never turns off. I guess it is some Japanese thing. Maybe I’ve complained about it before. Since the fan goes all the time, I have vents in my shower door where wind whistles in. The air has to circulate from somewhere, so Japanese construction companies are kind enough to put holes through exterior walls to make sure you don’t get a vacuum due to the fan that never turns off.
From the inside of the house, the vents look like this.
Basically, this vent is “deployed,†or open to the outside. There is a opening on the outside of the house, and a little filter / insulation in the hole. The vent is pushed in to seal the air from entering. Except when you push in the vent, the air changes from quiet and low flow rate around the edges to whistling and faster flow rate. The valves of the vent are useless. In my living room there are actually three vents.
The outside of the vent is nothing special, it’s only a slight grate over the hole.
The biggest problem is a have of set of the vents right by my bed, and nothing to keep the air from rushing over my head. I wake up in the winter time consistently with a stuffy ear because of the draft. I’ve tried many different tricks over the past few winters. Primarily I’ve tried to make a vapor barrier inside the hole. It never worked well though and although the volume was reduced there was still a lot of cold air blowing through.
This time I took an even more aggressive approach. It was time to kill the cold air at the source. It isn’t pretty but who else will be on my balcony? Just me. The grate is now blocked.
I’m sure I’ll need a tape change and even a change in material, but it seems to be somewhat more effective. Of course, that means that more air is rushing through the living room vents. But at least it won’t pull right over my head while I am sleeping anymore.