Bricking up grating in understairs cupboard

[jackhaughton]

Hello,

There's a grating in my understairs cupboard, about 1m above ground level, that vents directly to the outside. Currently it's used as the tumble dryer vent (as it was when we bought the house) by the tumble dryer's hose being bolted to the grating and then the space around stuffed with newspaper. This has always been an annoyance when the weather gets cold as the drafts are terrible, and this year I'd like to do something about it. The obvious thing (to me anyway) is to remove the grating, brick up the hole and put in a proper shuttered vent for the tumble dryer.

However, I'm a little wary of this as I don't really understand why the grating would be there in the first place, and don't want to obstruct it if it's doing something important. Most of the ground floor is suspended timber with venting to the underfloor void, as you'd expect, but this grating is halfway up the wall, and the floor of the understairs cupboard is concrete anyway. Solid walls, so nothing to do with venting a cavity or anything. Any ideas?

Many thanks,
Jack

 

[honda]

When the house was built the understairs cupboard would have been a food-store(pantry)and as such was fitted with the grating you describe. Go ahead and brick it up but do fit a shuttered vent for when you use the dryer.

 

[jackhaughton]

Ahha, thanks, that makes sense.

Next question: is there any cunning way of filling in the hole such that I get a smaller hole for the tumble dryer vent? Or do I need to brick it in completely and then hire the diamond core drill? Slightly annoying to have to fill in an existing hole and then drill another one! Fully prepared for the answer to be no, just wondering whether it would be possible to do some clever concreting or something.

J.

 

[honda]

You could I suppose use some suitably sized plastic tubing/piping cemented into the hole (and the rest of the hole filled in withe cement) to fit the dryer hose into or onto, but would that be aesthetically pleasing to you? Personally that's what I would do making sure that the tubing is at least the same length as the thickness of the wall.

Edit. You would need a grill on the outside to prevent unwanted visitors from calling.

 

[kbdiy]

As far as filling the hole is concerned, it would depend, to some extent, on what finish you need outside.

If facing brick, then ideally obtain a couple of matching bricks, cut them around the duct that you will install for the dryer, then neatly mortar the bricks in place.

If you have render outside then brick up around the duct (brick type not a concern now) and render over.

 

[jackhaughton]

Great - sounds like a plan. Thanks both.