Air brick filling

J_P_HA

I am looking to fill/remove 6 air bricks. I have checked with building control and they can see no purpose for them!

1960's bungalow, air vents go direct into cavity, above the dpc, they don't go into the room. Solid concrete floors throughout the house. 

The room they are on is freezing it suffers with heavy condensation I assume because the cavity is so cold due to air going in. 
There are no gas appliances in the room it's a bedroom. 

I was planning to silicone them first off see what happens, then if we notice mould or similar building up (previous occupants say never was a problem) I can simply drill them and remove the silicone.

Anyone have any thoughts on blocking these up? 

Thanks in advance.

J_P_HA

Pictures of vents

shiraz99

J_P_HA said:

I am looking to fill/remove 6 air bricks. I have checked with building control and they can see no purpose for them!

1960's bungalow, air vents go direct into cavity, above the dpc, they don't go into the room. Solid concrete floors throughout the house. 

The room they are on is freezing it suffers with heavy condensation I assume because the cavity is so cold due to air going in. 
There are no gas appliances in the room it's a bedroom. 

I was planning to silicone them first off see what happens, then if we notice mould or similar building up (previous occupants say never was a problem) I can simply drill them and remove the silicone.

Anyone have any thoughts on blocking these up? 

Thanks in advance.

It's because it's a bedroom and the warm air from your breath is condensing on the windows overnight. I would not block air bricks up, they're there for a good reason.

What heats the room?

stuart45

They were retro fitted. If they were put in to vent the cavity, this method was stopped years ago. It has been found to cause cold spots in the wall, and increase the U value of the wall to the same as 9inch brickwork.

Section62

stuart45 said:

They were retro fitted. If they were put in to vent the cavity, this method was stopped years ago. It has been found to cause cold spots in the wall, and increase the U value of the wall to the same as 9inch brickwork.

I'd guess from the condition of the mortar they were also relatively recently done.  It would make me wonder what problem the installer thought they were fixing... unless there were older metal/plastic vents and these are just straight replacements for the old ones.

Older Google streetview images might give a hint at when the work was done and what was there before.

JohnB47

Interesting that they're at different levels. Are you really sure that all floors in the bungalow are solid? Are there other bungalows nearby, built at the same time? Do they have air bricks fitted?

I recently went to view a bungalow for sale. The floor in one room was very springy under foot. Then, when outside looking at the garden, I noticed that the two air bricks for that room had been mortared over. That floor definitely needs to be checked out.

Section62

JohnB47's comment about the different levels made me look at the pictures again and I noticed there's another brick which appears to have been replaced, possibly at a different time due to the different mortar colour....

dogshome

From the photos it looks like the driveway blocks have been laid level with the damp course when they should be at least 2 bricks below

Maybe the airbricks were installed to deal with the resulting damp.