Years ago homes used to be built with air vents like this one connecting the outside to the inside. The room in which I'm sitting has four of these passing air through the double brick wall. A few years ago I noticed that new homes appeared not to have air vents - so either vents were of no real benefit, or architects decided it was easier to just leave them off the plan.
To be fair to the building trade, these vents do let in huge amounts of cold air in winter and hot air in summer - which isn't ideal. On the other hand, the absence of this ventilation may be why many small modern town-houses seem to struggle with damp in winter.
4 thoughts on “Obsolete air vents”
Helen
I did at one point tape mine up – afraid spiders could find their way into my room…. Helen 1 – Rain Spider 0… :)
@Helen, but Stefano has a point – the rain spiders could crawl under the door…
@Stefano, I thought I’d heard something like that once. Kerry-Anne and I lived in a house that had no ventilation holes for about a year when we first got married. We had serious issues with damp, which is what made me wonder about the necessity of ventilation holes.
That said, perhaps the builder had simply not sealed the outside walls properly.
Helen
Okay, That’s It’s – currenlty ducktaping my door and windows… who needs air anyway!
Helen
I did at one point tape mine up – afraid spiders could find their way into my room…. Helen 1 – Rain Spider 0… :)
Stefano Rivera
The building code used to require them, but not any more. One gets enough ventilation through cracks around doors, windows, etc.
Paul
Post author@Helen, but Stefano has a point – the rain spiders could crawl under the door…
@Stefano, I thought I’d heard something like that once. Kerry-Anne and I lived in a house that had no ventilation holes for about a year when we first got married. We had serious issues with damp, which is what made me wonder about the necessity of ventilation holes.
That said, perhaps the builder had simply not sealed the outside walls properly.
Helen
Okay, That’s It’s – currenlty ducktaping my door and windows… who needs air anyway!