Blocking up vents

carveone

Hi all,

I have a question about a vent on the outside of my brother's house. The house is a two story row house above apartments, the usual type. The next door neighbours are both chain smokers and my room on the upper floor is getting the smell. That and it is 10 degrees cooler in there in winter. I put in carpet and now it's smoky carpet smell. Not very nice. The other two rooms don't have the problem. The kitchen does - comes through the room vent and the boiler outflue.

I think the problem might be a vent below my room's floorboards. The vent doesn't seem to do anything, and might be for a chimney flue which was never put in. There is no sign of the usual pipe between the inner and outer walls.

I was going to drill out the mortar around the plastic vent thingy and fill the hole. Except when I peer through the vent, all I see is grey foam and what looks like black plastic. I expected to see a hole under the floorboards! Um. Has anyone any ideas of what I'm looking at? If the plastic is a damp block, why is air still coming through and up into my room???

Thanks.

RKQ

Interesting one, difficult to know without seeing it.
Any chance of a photo? (Wall of building showing position of vent)

Vents are usually installed for a reason. I would never advise anyone to block a vent, especially if you are unsure of its use or purpose.

Vents are required by law, to give adequate ventilation to a habital room. This ventilation promotes health and prevents condesation / mould forming on walls.

The smell of smoke can be unpleasant ( but I do enjoy a nice cigar!). IMO Condensation and poor ventilation can be bigger problems.:)

carveone

RKQ wrote: »

Interesting one, difficult to know without seeing it.
Any chance of a photo? (Wall of building showing position of vent)

Thanks RKQ. I don't have a photo but here's something knocked up in Paint!



The red is the brick and 1,2,3,4 are the vents. 1 2 and 3 are normal room vents. Vent #4 is the problem. The one beside it is next door's vent - if I tape over mine, the wind just comes through hers and into my room anyway. I can poke a wire into my vent and out hers so I guess the outer walls aren't isolated.
Oh yeah, out of 20 apartments, we and next door are the only ones with this vent!

Vents are usually installed for a reason. I would never advise anyone to block a vent, especially if you are unsure of its use or purpose.

I rang the original builder yesterday. He mentioned that it could be a hole meant for a fireplace outlet flue. He said "Ah sure, just block it up and don't worry about it". I would if I knew what to block up!

Cheers.

RKQ

Cheers Carveone. Nice drawing but I'm still confused!

I assume the apartments / house are separated by concrete floors.
Does vent 4 line up with a timber floor?
Vents at / or in a timber floor might suggest that vent 4 was for "mechanical" extractor serving a toilet etc.
Its in a very odd position, so I can't see how it could serve a flue for a fire / stove.
That fact that you can poke a wire into your vent and out your neighbours is very strange. The vents should not be connected, they should be isolated from each other. Isolating them would prevent smells travelling into your vent.