Can I cover my Air Vent?

Lizzy1973

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I live in a two hundred year house and there is a vent which I can see no purpose for. Can I block it up as it's so cold and noisey as I live on a busy road. It's quite high up on the wall. I have central heating and a log burner. There is a slight damp smell in the area of the vent which has always been there since I moved in. Not sure if the smell is coming from behind the cupboard. Any advice would be appreciated as I don't have a clue! As shown in the photos the vent is hidden behind a cupboard but there's a right draught! The electrics are also hidden in the cupboard. Also shows how thick my walls are!
 

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you'll need to find out if your boiler or log burner needs the vent for combustion.
Contact your gas and hetas service people to verify for sure
It looks like an old pantry vent so may be ok to cover up.
In any case building a sealed ish cupboard over the vent is a bad idea
1 it negates the vent
2 cold wet air will be getting trapped in the cupboard causing your damp issues.
There was probably a lower level vent at one time to create a circulation in an old pantry.
 
Agreed.
 
Agreed, airvents are there for a reason, to circulate stale air with fresh air and to let a house breath. Without an airvent you could have issues of damp/condensation and mould.
 
you'll need to find out if your boiler or log burner needs the vent for combustion.
Contact your gas and hetas service people to verify for sure
It looks like an old pantry vent so may be ok to cover up.
In any case building a sealed ish cupboard over the vent is a bad idea
1 it negates the vent
2 cold wet air will be getting trapped in the cupboard causing your damp issues.
There was probably a lower level vent at one time to create a circulation in an old pantry.
 
My first thoughts were pantry vent considering the age of the house,as above wise words to get it checked.
 
Thanks for all your replies. The cupboard was already there when I moved in. Would it be best to remove it? Don' really want all the electrics on show though. It could be a vent for a pantry as there are three cast iron hooks in my ceiling near the vent. Maybe it was an old butchers back in the day or for hanging bags of grain as the town I live in is well known for producing grain. It will be freezing in the winter though with the vent there!
 
I too think that this is an old pantry vent and can see no reason not to remove or block it.
 
It would be quite a mission to remove the cupboard and then how can I hide the elecrics? Any ideas?
 

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It would be quite a mission to remove the cupboard and then how can I hide the elecrics? Any ideas?
I see it also hides a gas meter which is a bit of a nuisance though that would not be a to major job to move. I think a joiner would be useful for advice as it is difficult to get the try picture from images.
 
It's not a vent for a Gas appliance or Solid fuel burner, so no worries in that area.

Have you insulated the house/fitted double glazing? If you haven't then there will be plenty of air movement already in the property if it is 200 years old. If you have then you might have problems with damp/condensation.

Personally, I would cover it with polystyrene/Kingspan etc, that can easily be removed at a later date if it does cause issues, but will seal it for now (using some decorating cork or something to seal the edges)
 
It's not a vent for a Gas appliance or Solid fuel burner, so no worries in that area.

Have you insulated the house/fitted double glazing? If you haven't then there will be plenty of air movement already in the property if it is 200 years old. If you have then you might have problems with damp/condensation.

Personally, I would cover it with polystyrene/Kingspan etc, that can easily be removed at a later date if it does cause issues, but will seal it for now (using some decorating cork or something to seal the edges)
 
Yes I do have double glazing. I have sash windows which is in keeping with the age of the property. Was thinking what if I drilled a few holes at the bottom of the cupboard through the skirting board to allow for air circulation and cover with a plastic vent cover? Would this help? There' not a massive damp smell, just slight which I'm sure comes from behind the cupboard. I originally thought when I moved in it was because no one had lived in the house for months. No Where else in the house smells of damp. It' all dry. This time of the year the vent doesn' really bother me other than a bit more noise from traffic but in the winter it will blow a gale through the house even though it' behind a cupboard!!!
 
Yes I do have double glazing. I have sash windows which is in keeping with the age of the property. Was thinking what if I drilled a few holes at the bottom of the cupboard through the skirting board to allow for air circulation and cover with a plastic vent cover? Would this help?
Possibly yes, but without removing the cupboard bottom back or area under the bottom shelf to see what is the cause of the damp smell its hard to say. You have good thick walls which act as a form of insulation so i doubt it is from condensation, more likely it is from water in the ground seeping through. Pantries where design to be cold and damp to a certain amount to best preserve food in the days before fridges etc, so soil directly against the outside wall is to be expected which will cause some damp.

The risk with blocking the vent off is that the damp smell may well increase as it no longer has a route to escape, so i would strongly advise doing a temp job for a good few months to see what happens before you do anything permanent.
 
Just an observation relating to the gas meter. As said it makes any potential work on it extremely difficult but more importantly do you have access to the ECV (red handle)?
If not, you seriously need to have access. If you have a gas leak you have no way to easily cut the gas supply to the property.
 
Very good point...
 
One more point:

If you do seal it off, do it at the outer (grille) end, not the inner wall. Or both. Otherwise, the cavity would be a good place for breeding vermin; especially a wasps' nest.
 
I live in a two hundred year house and there is a vent which I can see no purpose for. Can I block it up as it's so cold and noisey as I live on a busy road. It's quite high up on the wall. I have central heating and a log burner. There is a slight damp smell in the area of the vent which has always been there since I moved in. Not sure if the smell is coming from behind the cupboard. Any advice would be appreciated as I don't have a clue! As shown in the photos the vent is hidden behind a cupboard but there's a right draught! The electrics are also hidden in the cupboard. Also shows how thick my walls are!

It looks almost certain that the vent was for a pantry in a 200 year old house.
Try testing by blocking it off temporarily, say with polystyrene as it is a good insulator. The majority of gas c/h boilers are balanced flue and don't need ventilation, but you may need ventilation for a wood burning stove. Removing the cupboard may be a big job. The wall behind may need plastering and decorating and you'd still need to box in the electrics. (No old socks left in the boots at the bottom?)
 
Visiting builder said our vent in north facing bedroom was not required.I sealed it up myself.From then on plagued with damp and mold.Had to strip wallpaper and redo with thin sheet of polystyrene foam underneath as insulation ,and also reinstate vent.No problems after that.
 
This is actually an opportunity. There are active heat recovery modules which circulate stale damp air from inside the house ,extract the heat energy and use this to warm incoming air. .. if you inserted one here it will reduce dampness, however you would need to put another vent in the cupboard door.
If yours is a 200 year building what are the walls made from?. If they are rubble and clay held in a lime plaster, then you do need good ventilation.
It is highly probable that there was a solid fuel range located closeby at some stage over that lifespan, and that needed external air to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning
 
Possibly yes, but without removing the cupboard bottom back or area under the bottom shelf to see what is the cause of the damp smell its hard to say. You have good thick walls which act as a form of insulation so i doubt it is from condensation, more likely it is from water in the ground seeping through. Pantries where design to be cold and damp to a certain amount to best preserve food in the days before fridges etc, so soil directly against the outside wall is to be expected which will cause some damp.

The risk with blocking the vent off is that the damp smell may well increase as it no longer has a route to escape, so i would strongly advise doing a temp job for a good few months to see what happens before you do anything permanent.
Indeed many of the pantries of that and even later eras had a simple earth floor, no damp proof course and would have been called root cellars etc. I have seen rural houses built in 1950 with such a room.
 
It's right next to the front door so unlikely to be a pantry vent I would have thought. Root cellars are usually cellars aren't they? I've never heard of a pantry called a root cellar.
 
It's right next to the front door so unlikely to be a pantry vent I would have thought. Root cellars are usually cellars aren't they? I've never heard of a pantry called a root cellar.
Over the span of two hundred years, buildings do get rearranged, so what was once the front or a kitchen can become the rear of vice versa. And root cellars are not necessarily below ground level. My French property built 1950s had a backroom, with very limited light and a clay floor ,other floors were either tiled, or oak parquet. It was obviously intended as the winter vegetables store. Other properties in the locality were similar. I have since covered the clay with damp proofing and laid gravel on top.
Pantry would have been a food preparation area, like a back kitchen later a storage place for the silverware , and most recently the term is a store for prepared foods.
 

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