wall vent hole - is this the way it should be ?

tranceman

Hi
In my house all vents are just holes in the wall with covers on both ends and this is the way it is everywhere but what concerns me is that the air goes into the walls as well as entering the room because the vent is not tunelled. What I mean by that is when I take the cover off in one of the rooms I can see bricks, insulating wool, plastic sheets and everything thats inside the wall. Should there not be a pipe or plastic tunel so the air travels between outside and room only not inside the walls as well efectively cooling the house down ? Or is there a very good reason why this is left this way and I should not touch it ? I want to fix it but I'm not sure I should. Can anyone give me some info/advice ?

Thanks

DOCARCH

Your instincts are correct. Vent holes should be sleeved. If vent holes are circular, relatively easy to sleeve with similar diameter PVC pipe. If square, harder to find, but you can buy square PVC sleeves for the purpose.

thesteve

Mine are the same but unfortunately the inner hole doesn't even line up right with the outer hole. They're off by a few inches. I ended up basically using expanding foam to seal around the vent holes where the cold air would enter between the walls but allowing the air flow through the vent.

tranceman

My holes are all different sizes so I wont be able to use pvc. I'm going to cut 4 panels out of a plaster board and stick them into the opening and sealing it all. My walls are also open on the top. I can see it in the attic - cables going into the wall and insulating wool in the wall. I'm guessing this should not be like this too? M I right?

House was only built 12 years ago but it looks like someone did it very badly. No wonder why ber rating is so crap.

lawred2

Were big massive holes in walls the best we could come up with?