Air bricks blocked off - what are the options to redirect?

[Chas72]

We're updating our kitchen and have had the room the previous one was in stripped out, walls back to bare brick and the flooring taken up.

The old kitchen floor was a slab with old terecotta style tiles on top and a step up into a laundry room with a wooden floor and a void underneath. The void floor connected to an air brick at the back of the house and the void continued into the back lounge room of the house.

Before our tradesman started we discussed a system like this (http://www.myhouseextension.com/images/vent8.jpg) to continue the air flow on that side of the house to the rear air brick in the kitchen wall, under the new kitchen slab they were putting it.

The slab and flooring is now down and the under slab venting wasn't put in. Instead they planned to put some chrome grills from the down step into the kitchen that would vent across to a grill in the kitchen base unit plinths across the floor, which has under floor heating.

Given that the heat from the under floor heating would be drawn out the air brick or under the house we didn't go for that option.

The house is in a row of terraces approx 17 foot wide each. The air brick on the rear right side of the house connects to the void in the back lounge.

Now that the air brick in the kitchen on the left of the house is due to be closed off is it possible to use a system similar to this (http://www.manthorpe.co.uk/Building/Products/Through-Wall-Underfloor-Vents/Remote-Void-Vent.html) - a flexible 4in pipe that sealed around a air brick to connect the right side of the house with the left (in a Z type shape) via a new air brick on the right of the house?

And to prove that it's drawing air out (or in) our tradesman would need to do an actual smoke test?

Would there be any issues with building control or surveyors when selling the house given that there are only air bricks on the right hand side at the rear of the house?


Thanks for you help

Chas

 

[^woody^]

I'm not clear what you are saying this air brick actually ventilates? The room or the underfloor void?

Incidentally, heat from underfloor heating would not be drawn out of an underfloor air brick.

 

[Chas72]

Cheers for the reply, Woody.

I'm not clear what you are saying this air brick actually ventilates? The room or the underfloor void?

Under floor void. The room next to the kitchen (back lounge) now has ventilation on the right hand side only via an air brick around the side of the house. The overall width of this void is approx. 17 foot. The air brick on the right is approx 2 foot from the right hand side boundary wall.

Incidentally, heat from underfloor heating would not be drawn out of an underfloor air brick.

I can see that having a chrome grill on the down step into the kitchen that opens up air flow from the void under the back lounge would not draw that much air from the kitchen but the air brick that sits behind the base unit (with the grill on the plinth) in the kitchen is double height. In the middle of winter I can imagine a gall blowing across the kitchen floor and if it was a problem the only way to stop the air flow is to go outside and physically block from front of the air brick. Can you see that now as a problem?

 

[Chas72]

Any other suggestions on a system to redirect an airbrick from one side of an under floor void to another?

And is this the sort of change that a surveyor would take interest in when we sell the house?


Thanks