Brick Vents

[Invisibabe]

Hi,

I hope I posted this in the right place!

I'm looking for some advice re. brick vents.

I bought a new-build property (in Scotland) last year and had a snagging report done. The builders were initially good at fixing some of the items, but then staff allocated to this site were moved elsewhere, and communication hasn’t been straight-forward since then.

One of the issues listed on my snagging report was in respect of air vents, see attached screenshot.

I’ve raised this with the builders, and had the following response:

‘I have contacted the previous assistant site manager for assistance on this issue and he has now advised that the issue was found to be 100% compliant. Level access trumps weep vents within 600mm of the access. He advised that I could ask our ground worker sub-contractor to attend to expose the vents by pulling the chips down or away from then.’

For the record, my experience of the ‘previous assistant site manager’ was that the guy was pretty gormless.

I’m obviously capable of flicking some chips away myself, but I was wondering if anyone could put that second sentence into layman’s terms for me – ‘Level access trumps weep vents within 600mm of the access’ ? Exactly what does that mean? Is it saying that vents within 6 metres of my front door don’t need to be 75mm above ground? If so, is that true?

Grateful for any advice which you can offer.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

It's saying that the Building Regulations for achieving a level access to a property and the regulations demanding weep holes are not compatible with one another ie you cannot always achieve both and in such cases level access is deemed more important than the weep holes and the developers should use their best endeavours to do what is possible. Of course whether they have or not in your situation is another question.

 

[Invisibabe]

It's saying that the Building Regulations for achieving a level access to a property and the regulations demanding weep holes are not compatible with one another ie you cannot always achieve both and in such cases level access is deemed more important than the weep holes and the developers use their best endeavours to do what is possible. Of course whether they have or not in your situation is another question.

Ah, so level access rules are presumably to do with wheelchairs being able to get in and out easily? Ok, I think I understand the situation. I should probably just move some stone chips away from the vents myself then.

Thanks for your help!

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Correct.

 

[stevie888]

With proper attention to detail the vents should have been set higher to suit the raised access: this is what telescpoic vents are for.