kitchen ventilation

spingers

Can anyone offer advice on home venitlation? We have just installed a kitchen in the middle of our basement flat. It is part of the lounge which has opening windows. We are having our trouble with Hackney council giving us our building certificate as we have no mechanical, external extraction. The issue was only raised at the final inspection and the council will offer no help whatsoever. We have to a put a solution in place and they will inspect it, they wont tell us what solution we should persue.
Building regs F1 seems open to interpretation. Any help on this problem would be greatly appreciated as we are hoping to sell our flat as soon as we resolve this.
Apologies if this has already been posted, I thought I had but I cannot find it on any other board.

culpepper

we have the ventilator for our bathroom (no windows)via an extractor fan in the ceiling and tubing going along between the ceiling and upstairs floor to the outside,could something like that be achieved? You would have to drill a hole to take a ventiltion cover on the outside wall.

spingers

thanks for your reply but to vent to an outside wall would be difficult, we live in a basement flat with the most peculiar set of walls and ceilings.
I don't see why we need to externally vent when it is open plan to a room with windows. We have in place a charcoal filter but that isn't enough for the building inspectors.
At the moment I am ignoring the problem and getting on with all the other chores

economiser

As you say it is matter of interpretation. There is no requirement for mechanical ventilation unless the kitchen is an internal room. They seem to be regarding your lounge and kitchen as separate spaces and thus saying the kitchen is internal. They are being unreasonable in not giving advice as to what would be acceptable. Would a window fan be OK or are they insisting on a ducted system. I can only suggest you approach them again suggesting a fan. Perhaps you can speak to another BCO.

spingers

It is good to hear that. I believe they are being unreasonable as they are incompetent and they just don't know the correct answer. Hey-ho, I can't imagine we are the first nor will we be the last to be frustrated by p*ss poor local council.

996ducati

Have a look at the Building Regs Document F.

There is a section dedicated to Ventilation in Basements.

http://www.communities.gov.uk/pub/634/ApprovedDocumentFVentilation2005interimeditionPDF650Kb_id1130634.pdf

996ducati

never_enough

I agree with economiser. It seems very unreasonable, but as you probably know, it's not the first time that's been said about Hackney council! I'm not sure if it's because a door *could* be put on by someone in the future, thereby making it an internal room & poss requiring diff planning permissions?
Try another officer if you can, although they may not want to offend a colleague! Just had a quick at the regs 996ducati posted & it mentions venting through other rooms if nothing else is possible. Could you vent into the bathroom & have one of those fans that come on when you turn on the light to take the moisture from there to outside?