Air Bricks High Up In Each Room

[poddys]

We have a 1950's house that has large square air bricks in each room, about 9 inches below ceiling level, and with a vent the same size on the inside of each room, upstairs as well.

We are getting huge drafts from these, especially as we live halfway up a hill, and the house is a semi, exposed to the South and West.

The Bathroom and Kitchen are on that side and are always freezing all year round, no matter what we do, and the bedroom above them is also cold. This side also has external air bricks about a foot above the ground, which doesn't help.

We have been blocking the inside in every room by covering with plastic film, but I was wondering if the air bricks are now all necessary.

The original fireplace was at one time fitted with a gas fire and back boiler. The boiler is now decommissioned and we never use the gas fire. The new gas boiler is in a cupboard on the landing and has it's own ventilation.

I wondered about putting cowls on the outside of the air bricks to suppress most of the wind, or whether we could actually block some of them completely.

I know that we need some air flow in the rooms and the cavities, but I am sure we don't need that much.

The floors downstairs are concrete, and the air bricks are all above floor level.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[big-all]

fit these
http://www.screwfix.com/prods/16928...ng/Manrose-Square-White-229mm-Adjustable-Vent
close and ventilate as required

 

[poddys]

Thanks for the link big-all.

This would work in the living room, where there is a really cheap plastic vent cover that doesn't close, but in all the other rooms the vents are the original brick ones, almost 11" by 10", and they jut out into the room almost an inch as well.

I hadn't thought about removing these, because I don't know if they are actually special bricks, rather than just covers. I would rather not begin something that I can't finish and have a worse mess than I started with.

That's why I thought to put something on the wall outside to stop the cold wind from getting into the walls, or at least to stop most of it, rather than messing with the inside walls.

 

[cozycats]

The gas fire even if YOU don't use it needs a ventilation brick of sorts. If you don't use it remove it. If there are no other coal/gas appliances and the boiler is of balanced/fanned flue variety I see no reason why the holes shouldn't be bricked up permanently inside and out. You will of course increase the risk of condensation problems. I suggest you contact a local builder for further advice, especially as in that period it could be a 'system built' house which have all sorts of wierd idiosyncrasy's.

 

[foxhole]

You either have ventilation or condensation, your choice.

 

[Ricardus]

fit these
http://www.screwfix.com/prods/16928...ng/Manrose-Square-White-229mm-Adjustable-Vent
close and ventilate as required

You might want to put them on both the inside and outside of the wall - even when closed there's still a bit of a draft gets through them.
I fitted the aluminium adjustable vent to the outside of the wall as well - but I do have three double-brick high vents in a row on the kitchen wall where there used to be a larder so I get 3x the drafts!

 

[poddys]

One inside vent in the kitchen is at the back of the cupboard under the kitchen sink. Another is behind a top cupboard, and we get damp in there.

The vents are 11"x12" so most of the vent covers are too small to cover them. I might have to make something up.

 

[cumbriahandyman]

You either have ventilation or condensation, your choice.

Ventilation need not mean drafts.

 

[Nige F]

We have a 1950's house that has large square air bricks in each room, about 9 inches below ceiling level, and with a vent the same size on the inside of each room, upstairs as well.

, but I was wondering if the air bricks are now all necessary.

I know that we need some air flow in the rooms and the cavities, but I am sure we don't need that much.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

You don`t need airflow in the wall cavities Is it an ex Council house - they used to fit those vents in bedrooms without fireplaces .No central heating, no loft insulation , Crittall single glazed windows . If you`ve not lived through winter `63 in a house like that - you`ve not LIVED

 

[poddys]

I can't imagine how cold it was in a bitter winter like that.

I barely remember the winter of 1963, except we had deep snow on the Dorset Coast, where it's rarely seen. Back then we had coal/coke fires in the house I grew up in too.

This house we live in now was built early 1950's and was not a council house. The windows are now double glazed, and with a gas boiler that is vented outside it seems that the vents in each room are unnecessary.