Air brick removal

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20 Nov 2019
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I have an air brick in a bedroom it has hit n miss vent but its still letting in lots of road noise and draughts and small insects. I also have opening windows with trickle vents and theres no boiler or gas appliance in the room.

I took the hit n miss vent off to check the design of the air brick and basically its a normal mesh air brick outside with approx 2in by 6in void to the bedroom, it does not ventilate the cavity wall. So I am thinking it's safe to remove without any damp issues?

Is it better to just slam a load of mortar in the gap and smooth over from both sides? Or should it be chiseled out and bricked and mortared? Are there any other tips or dos or donts? Should I for example insulate the middle to prevent penetrating damp in the mortar? Or leave a gap in the mortar? What about the air brick, could damp penetrate through that if it was plastered over? It is currently against the plastic hit n miss vent.

Cheers!!
 
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I asked the same question, except my vent had been blocked internally and plastered long ago - the answer was it was fine to block up the outside, by what ever means suites. My brick had suffered a damaged grid and had planned to chop it out and insert bricks which I had to hand, but pushed for time, I decided to simply fill it in with a cement mix.
 
it does not ventilate the cavity wall.
Just saying but the cavity in an external wall does not need to be ventilated anyway.
Remove air brick and vents and brick up the hole in the brick outer skin and block up the hole in the inner leaf and plaster over I would say.
 
Cheers fair point, I wanted to be clear because my previous house had an air brick in the external wall specifically to just the cavity (it didn't enter internally at all), but I suspect it might have been a vent for radon rather than the cavity :) as if i recall correctly i think that one was below the dpc but above ground level.
 
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please God that you've not been affected by radon - mumsnet do a very good and delicately worded article on radon and its shameful effects.
one family had to wear gas masks 24/7 - stained but not beaten they endured.
 
Air bricks in radon areas are ducted to ventilate the underfloor space. There are special construction details for membranes etc for buildings in radon areas. Local Authorities have details of areas in the country where radon is a risk .
 

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