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What is a Louver Vent?

A. Leverkuhn
A. Leverkuhn

A louver vent is a kind of physical installation that helps vent air through a fixture that incorporates slanted pieces for natural control in heating and cooling systems. Lots of homes have a louver vent system in place to help route warm or cool air into rooms. This kind of engineering is also popular in vehicles and other heating and cooling systems for any kinds of interior spaces.

The term “louver vent” comes from the French “l’ouvert” meaning “open.” Original louver vent systems were made from wooden slats to let in air and sunlight while keeping out precipitation. These were very simple additions to exterior walls. As technology improved, it became more common for louver designs to include an ability to shift their angle, in order to provide more versatility for these kinds of air control systems.

Woman holding a book
Woman holding a book

In the modern era, as trends in building materials and systems changed, engineers improved new louver ventilation systems. Today’s louver vents are usually made of metal, with small, precise rows of ventilation slats for air control. Pre-fabricated louver vents are often part of what a building contractor installs in a home where centralized heating and air conditioning are part of the home’s design. On the other side of the walls containing louver vents, large air vent tunnels, or ducts, conduct air from a central source into various rooms and levels of a building.

Different kinds of louvered vents outfit various areas of a building. Many buildings have louvered gable vents to route air through an attic space. Interior louver vents help distribute air into a room. Both of these kinds of then systems are designed specifically for the spaces that they are installed in. Conducting air through these kinds of systems can help lower certain kinds of wear on a building while making its interior more comfortable.

Today, the contractors who help to install louver vents and similar HVAC or Heating, venting and air conditioning systems, often know about debates over types and styles of home heating. Central air conditioning and heating can be costly, and homeowners are looking at any ways to cut down on home heating and cooling costs. Meanwhile, government initiatives are focusing on ways to help save energy by incentivizing heating and cooling solutions in American homes. All of this makes it likely that heating and cooling contractors will continue to utilize design improvements for the air conditioning systems in homes of the future.

Discussion Comments

kylee07drg

My car has louver vents. If you close off the vents on one side, the air flows more forcefully out the ones that remain open.

Since whoever is sitting on the side the sun is hitting gets hotter, this is a great feature. If I’m in the shade and my husband is sitting in the sun, I simply shut the louver vents nearest to me, and he gets quite a bit more cold air blown on him.

I can also adjust the air flow vertically. Sometimes, I like it to blow on my face to cool it down. Other times, it irritates my eyes and dries them out. I can pull a small lever on the left side of the vent to make the air blow more towards my feet or towards my cheeks.

wavy58

I love the control that louver vents give me from room to room. I can make one room cooler than another just by opening and closing the slats.

The vent I adjust the most is the one in the bathroom. When I take a shower in the summer, I like having the vent open to keep the room cool and less humid. In the winter, I keep it shut, because even though the air coming out is warm, any type of air blowing on me when I’m wet makes me chilly.

The other vent I adjust often is in my bedroom. In winter, the heat sometimes dries my sinuses out. I shut the vent in my room at night and turn on a humidifier so that I can breathe easier.

shell4life

In addition to giving you control over the flow of air through your home, louver vents can offer protection from pests. I found this out when I moved into a new home that had one louver vent missing.

My family and I had just stepped inside the house. We were standing in the utility room when we saw the gaping hole at the top of a metal air duct in the floor. Tucked just inside the duct was a snake skin!

Without the narrow slats of a louver vent to prevent it from crawling through, the snake had been able to get in the house. We looked everywhere, but we couldn’t find it, so it probably escaped back out the duct. The first thing we did was replace that louver vent!

StarJo

I have central heat and air, and my floor has several louver vents in it for the distribution of air. Louver vents have been present in every house I have lived in, so I am very familiar with them.

The top grill of the vent usually has about twenty air slots. Beneath the grill are two long metal pieces that can be manipulated by a notched gear on the top left side of the grill.

Pushing the gear in one direction will cause the pieces to turn vertically, allowing air to flow straight up. Pushing it in the opposite direction causes them to turn to a horizontal position, closing off the air flow.

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      Woman holding a book