Draughty kitchen

[Alison556]

Just had the kitchen all redone but geez is there a horrendous draught coming from under the plinths. I know where it's coming from - there's an air vent from outside that used to go into the old corner larder cupboard - it's an old house and it was obviously a way they kept foodstuffs cool in cupboards.

First up, I'm going to try and block the vent off - but I was wondering - if I jammed polystyrene insultation blocks under the units (just a row of them, not packing out the whole underside), would that help with the draught or is it a no-no safety wise using polystyrene blocks in this way in a kitchen?

 

[Deluks]

Why bother if you are going to block the vent off?

Is the vent accessible from outside? If so you'll have nee problem removing/filling it.

 

[Alison556]

Yeah the vent is accessible from the outside - no problem. I dunno but these houses seem to have an abundance of air vents - talk about letting air circulate!!!!

Hopefully that will do the trick.

Thanks.

 

[r896neo]

Its good for you! Put on a jumper and tut at all those sickly wheezing neighbours!

 

[big-all]

is there any gas appliances that may be reliant on the vent in the kitchen or any ajoining room !!!

 

[Symptoms]

Alison - if no gas appliances in that room block it up. Neat job = from outside ... chisel it out, brick-up with matching bricks (tip: if you can't buy matching look around your garden, often these jobbies were used for walls etc.) Otherwise, block-up from the outside with builders' foam squirted through the holes in the vent (foam is £4 to £8 a can).

 

[Alison556]

Thanks all. There is the boiler and gas hob in the kitchen but I don't think the vent is anything to do with them.

The old kitchen units didn't have any backs on them and this vent went into the corner unit - like it was meant to keep the contents cool. A lot of the old council houses here seem to have them. There are a hell of a lot of air vents all over the house - the under floor ones - there are three under the living room, four under each of the two bedrooms, two under the bathroom and two under the kitchen, as well as this one in the cupboard!

I've a feeling that originally, when the house was built c.1919, that part of the room had like a pantry (there's a tiny little window there too) and it was some kind of method of keeping it cool - course, I could be wrong!

 

[Symptoms]

Alison - you're correct about the old pantry and it's venting; they also had stone shelves (or thick concrete paving slabs) and these DID keep the thing cool.