Neighbour's extractor fan discharging into mine, how to block it?

JackHeuston

So, there's this problem happening since a few months now, basically every time my neighbour (or neighbours?) turn on their extractor fan, they discharge some part of the smelly smells :eek: they produce while cooking into my apartment.

In my building there are quite a lot of apartments, I think 9 at least, all accessible from a single staircase so we're all very close to each other, and I suppose one or two of them discharge some fumes into my apartment, somehow.

There's one of them, every night, every single night, they cook something extremely spicy or ethnic, and the smell is absolutely unbearable. This happens every night between 10pm and 11pm.

I kind of solved this issue turning on my extractor fan when they're using theirs, I can hear their fan working through the air duct, but if I miss one day... Last Saturday I had a night out, and when I came back the smell was so awful... my bed, clothes, furniture, everything got soaked in that smell and I was able to get rid of it only by Sunday.

I don't want that to happen anymore. Unfortunately, I don't even know from what apartment that's coming from, and I'm trying to bother my landlord only for real emergencies, like the immersion not working or other stuff I can't live without.

Is there anything I can do myself? I checked my extractor fan and it's not that my neighbour's one is forcing the air through mine, I think some air simply flows down my air duct and slowly comes out from my fan. I did the check with a lighter near the hood while their fan was on and I couldn't spot any visible "leaks". The smell basically comes out from my fan, passing through the (greasy) filter that's inside, too! The outside one (the one that looks like it's made out of paper) is new and it's not sealing anything as it's simply there for basic protection.



I was thinking that maybe I can put something in the air duct connected to my extractor? Something I can manually open and close to seal the passage when I'm not cooking? Or are there better options other than involving everyone's landlords and see where's the problem in the building? (their smell somehow goes out in the building's staircase, too, it's really out of this world, I can't imagine what their apartment would be like)

kirving

Could this be regarded as a fire risk? You wouldn't want smoke or carbon monoxide from a fire in another apartment entering yours.

Calahonda52

my guess is that with the cold weather there is no natural updraft what appears to be a communal stack and hence when the spice man fan comes on the easy way to flow is down and into other apartments.

Does your fan not have a working back flap to stop such back-drafts.

What floor are u on versus spice man?

I disagree that is not a serious issue for your landlord.

Anybody else on here think there is a fire regs issue here?

JackHeuston

Kevin Irving wrote: »

Could this be regarded as a fair risk? You wouldn't want smoke or carbon monoxide from a fire in another apartment entering yours.

hmmm I didn't think of this possibility before!

Calahonda52 wrote: »

my guess is that with the cold weather there is no natural updraft what appears to be a communal stack and hence when the spice man fan comes on the easy way to flow is down and into other apartments.

Does your fan not have a working back flap to stop such back-drafts.

Have no idea, I guess it doesn't?

Calahonda52 wrote: »

What floor are u on versus spice man?

I'm on ground level and I'm pretty sure spice man is not on my floor, so I'd say they're upstairs.

meercat

you can fit these relatively easy to your existing pipe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_M5kj3SNyY

JackHeuston

Thanks! That's what I was looking for. Hopefully it's going to seal the duct well when it's closed.

MicktheMan

JackHeuston wrote: »

So, there's this problem happening since a few months now, basically every time my neighbour (or neighbours?) turn on their extractor fan, they discharge some part of the smelly smells :eek: they produce while cooking into my apartment.

Since this appears to be a relative new phenomenon, is it possible that the main extract duct (for all the apartments) is blocked somehow? If this is a possibility, then contact the management company to investigate and fix.