1950s house vents - how to block up?

milkybars

We have fully looked into the pros, cons and safety aspects of blocking up the vents in some of the rooms in our house. Most were covered in masking tape and wallpaper by the previous owners anyway and we've no problems with condensation or gas fires/boilers. Outside the appearance is fine, a larger brick with hollow squares. Inside the vents stick out from the wall just above head height, are fairly solid and investigating underneath the masking tape and wallpaper is a painted vent with wide enough gaps to see outside so would be drafty if we were to uncover and paint them.

We've taken the wallpaper off the rest of the walls in the room and the walls are in good condition, nothing a little bit of filler won't fix. A nice find at we'd anticipated having to have them replastered or skimmed. Any ideas how to remove the vent, suitably fill the hole and make such a large gap smooth with the rest of the wall?

Thanks

chiefgoobster

I've got these,like many other folk, in my house ! One was in the bathroom and the other in the small box room. The Bathroom one got used to house an electric fan along with a small length of flexible silver ducting and works fine ! The box room I just mixed up some sand + cement and along with some old bricks, bricked it up, a smidge of bonding plaster followed by polyfilla.Sanded down and polyfilled again and Bobs your uncle. Far too much work involved to undo the above if anyone now tells us that these old vents should still be left !!
....and yes , I do have 'trickel vents ' on the windows to allow for air-circulation.
Hope this has helped, even in a small way.Good luck.

ic

See the adjustable vents here: http://www.screwfix.com/cats/100139/Heating-Cooling/Ducting

Cheap and in several sizes and finishes - just put these over the hole.

27col

Chop out the air vents and clean up the hole. Get some ready mix mortar from Wickes and mortar in a couple of bricks or a chunk of Thermalite block.( this can be cut to size with a handsaw.) Render over with rendering mix or mix your own from sand and cement. Key the surface with the point of a trowel. Level it up using a small length of wood. When it has set, give it a quick skim of some surface finish. Even if the area is as much as 9 inches square it should be easy enough to DIY.

milkybars

Bricks are in the house defrosting - found them in the garden y'see. Mortar mix has been purchased... wish me luck! I'm a brickie virgin!

milkybars

Bricks in place and mortar dried. So bonding plaster next... any tips?

Basil1234

if plaster starts drying and you still need some time to work it i know a trick is to get a clean wet paint brush and flick a little water on it but thats my only trick with that it all come down to practice makes perfect.

MrsE_2

Should you remove these vents at all???

I have them.

Does the house not need them to breath (or whatever).

Can I block mine up?

I have one in the bathroom & one in my Bedroom. Not sure if there is one in DDs bedroom.

milkybars

I would say probably not in the case of your bathroom. We're not blocking our bathroom one up. In the case of this particualar vent, it was covered over and sealed with duct tape by the previous owner and we've experienced no problems with ventilation (there's no gas appliance in there) or condensation in that room whilst it has been covered. So we are presuming that blocking it up and removing the ugly vent is no different. Also this room is a small box room we are using for a study so not heavily occupied and no-one will be sleeping in there. Our windows have both trickle vents and a cracked-open lockable system which we make use of. Based on all these points we are blocking it up.

ormus

the air bricks, esp upstairs in the bedrooms were there, cause they used to have coal fires in the rooms. with modern CH (sealed boilers) they are really not required in most cases.

we have air bricks below ground floor level, they are still required.

MrsE_2

ormus wrote: »

the air bricks, esp upstairs in the bedrooms were there, cause they used to have coal fires in the rooms. with modern CH (sealed boilers) they are really not required in most cases.

we have air bricks below ground floor level, they are still required.

I have an extractor that comes on when it gets steamy, so I probably don't need it then.

Shame I didn't know that when we were putting in the bathroom, never mind it can come out next time:D