Air vent in floor

TELLIT01

If you no longer have a gas fire, and don't plan to reinstate it, I would definitely fill it in and lay flooring over it.  It is serving no useful purpose.  My neighbours had a similar vent and, as the OP says, it's a hell of a draft which comes in through it.

We had a gas fire with back boiler and ventilation for that was through vents above our patio doors and it worked perfectly adequately for many years.  One year when the fire was serviced the engineer claimed the vents were not adequate for the fire, although he couldn't explain why it had been OK for at least 20 years prior to this.  He then claimed that it was only advisory that additional ventilation was required, and suggested cutting a hole in the floor.  We declined his kind offer but shortly after that replaced the boiler with a combi and removed the gas fire anyway.

grumbler

missile said:

If and when you re-instate gas fire you will need a vent.

I have a basic gas fire in my house (c. 1995) and not a single vent in the whole house.

Jeepers_Creepers

Bubble - what type of floor is there - suspended T&G floorboards, chipboard, what? Do you know if there's any insulation under the rest? How large is the hole under the vent cover - a few drilled holes or something larger?

Yes, cover it up. But I'd personally also want the holes insulated at least as well as the rest of the floor - ie the equivalent of whatever the rest is made of - you'd ideally want to avoid cold spots. 

Doesn't matter too much how you do this. If it's, say, a rectangular hole in timber floorboards or chipboard, you could simply cut a piece of hardboard slightly larger, attach a cord to its centre, run adhesive around the edges, drop it through and then pull it back up so's it sticks from below. Then cut a piece of polystyrene foam or anything with insulation value to fit snugly in the recess. An easy way is to use expanding foam, but whether it's worth buying a tube for just this is your call. If it's a series of drilled holes, then exp foam would certainly fill them pdq! 

Are you removing the skirting boards to fit the laminate? If so, run a bead of exp foam around any gaps you find under there too - you won't believe how annoying any draughts that percolate up from under your skirtings can be... 

Thin bead, allow to expand and set, trim with knife - it's great. :-)

bubbleT

Jeepers_Creepers said:

Bubble - what type of floor is there - suspended T&G floorboards, chipboard, what? Do you know if there's any insulation under the rest? How large is the hole under the vent cover - a few drilled holes or something larger?

Yes, cover it up. But I'd personally also want the holes insulated at least as well as the rest of the floor - ie the equivalent of whatever the rest is made of - you'd ideally want to avoid cold spots. 

Doesn't matter too much how you do this. If it's, say, a rectangular hole in timber floorboards or chipboard, you could simply cut a piece of hardboard slightly larger, attach a cord to its centre, run adhesive around the edges, drop it through and then pull it back up so's it sticks from below. Then cut a piece of polystyrene foam or anything with insulation value to fit snugly in the recess. An easy way is to use expanding foam, but whether it's worth buying a tube for just this is your call. If it's a series of drilled holes, then exp foam would certainly fill them pdq! 

Are you removing the skirting boards to fit the laminate? If so, run a bead of exp foam around any gaps you find under there too - you won't believe how annoying any draughts that percolate up from under your skirtings can be... 

Thin bead, allow to expand and set, trim with knife - it's great. :-)

Thanks for the great advice, that sounds like DIY we could actually manage ourselves it's a suspended floor and the hole is the size of the vent so might just get some expanding foam for an easy fix.