Air bricks at ground level

DucatiSteve

Hi,

We are thinking of buying a house but it has very low air bricks, they are basically at ground level (well below the 150mm minimum); it looks like the paving has been done without considering them.

I have pictures but as a new user I can't upload them. Basically the whole house has been covered with that stuff that looks like cheap pebbledash (more like dirt mixed with sand) but they left the very bottom bricks exposed, but the airbricks are at ground level (so if it rains even a little bit the water would get in).

I have a friend who bought a house with similarly positioned air bricks and he had a nightmare; they went in to fix a creaky floorboard and found that the whole ground floor had been flooded from the low airbricks and the floorboards were rotten.

This property doesn't have creaky floor boards but obviously I'm concerned. We really like the house otherwise so we thought we'd ask for opinions. Is this likely to be a problem? Has anyone seen this before?

Cheers!

Steve

00ec25

so the house is covered with render (a mix of cement and sharp sand applied like plaster) - nothing particularly horrific about that. The render has been applied above the DPC and has not spanned over the DPC so rising damp is not a problem - all good stuff in accordance with building practice

the air bricks are below the DPC because they are supposed to be! The property has a suspended wood floor and it is vital that air bricks exist in order to ventilate the void below the floor to prevent damp due to condensation

are the air bricks still one brick above ground level or are they now absolutely level with the ground? If level then yes, some numpty has raised the ground too high and it will need to be lowered so there is at least one, preferably 2 bricks between the bottom of the air brick and the ground level to provide protection from surface water runoff during heavy rain. Whether water ingress is really a concern also of course depends on the slope of the land and whether it is porous soil or impermeable paving that abuts the house

Doozergirl

All the time!

It can be addressed very simply by lowering the ground level very locally around the edges of the house. It just depends on whether there is already damage. Quite often there isn't. It's generally better to have airbricks that are low and open than blocked ones, which is just as common. The problems come if water is able to get into them.

The house across the road from me had a concrete drive, sloped, put in at airbrick level. Water had clearly been pouring in for years and the stairs on the other side were bouncing with clear rot. That's as bad as I've ever seen and the cause was so obvious!

If there's a cellar, it's ideal to be able to check the joist condition, otherwise you're just guessing.

G_M

I had exactly this when I boughht 20 years ago.

Spent a weekend digging a 10" wide trench, abut a foot deep, around the external walls, and filled it with 3-4" of gravel.

I have no idea if that meets building regs (probably not) but it stops water getting into the air bricks and ensures the ground level does not breach the dpc.

sorted.

DucatiSteve

Thank you very much for the responses.

The air bricks are indeed at ground level. I'm looking at the property on google street view and it looks like the work was quite recent (the old driveway is present on street view, also the render hasn't been painted over). However even with the old driveway, the airbricks seem to be roughly at ground level (looking at my pictures more closely, most seem to be 1-2cm from the ground). The good news I guess is that it looks like the whole drive is sloped slightly towards the road, and none of the floorboards inside were springy.

We haven't even put an offer down on the house, so this is something we could negotiate. Would anyone know how much it would cost to remove the paving slabs around the border of the house and fill with gravel? Is that a job that's relatively easy to DIY with a crowbar and some elbow grease?

00ec25

G_M wrote: »

I had exactly this when I boughht 20 years ago.

Spent a weekend digging a 10" wide trench, abut a foot deep, around the external walls, and filled it with 3-4" of gravel.

I have no idea if that meets building regs (probably not) but it stops water getting into the air bricks and ensures the ground level does not breach the dpc.

no idea if it meets buildings regs but what you describe is the beginning of a French Drain although to be fully correct it should have a pipe at the bottom of the trench to lead the water away somewhere else

00ec25

DucatiSteve wrote: »

Is that a job that's relatively easy to DIY with a crowbar and some elbow grease?

lifting a slab and digging a hole is manual labour so yes it is an "easy" DIY job