Ventilation

[Sarie]

Hey guys, I'm sure this comes up a lot but I was hoping someone could help me out.

I recently bought a new house with a Baxi Bermuda 401 back boiler in the lounge and an old gas fire over the front of it. I was surprised to find that the ventilation was located in the kitchen with no vents through from the lounge to the kitchen but the previous owner provided a certificate and said her son was a gas safety engineer and had certified it safe before the sale. I've been leaving the kitchen/lounge door wide open and have rammed a door stop under it as I'm not happy at all. From checking online the maximum output from the boiler is 11.70kW but I'm not sure what the output of the fire is. It's an outset gas fire so I'd guess somewhere in the region of 6kW but I'm not sure.

Anyhoo.. I'm having external solid wall insulation fitted in a few weeks and as part of the scheme a gas engineer came out to check everything prior to the work being done. I discussed ventilation with him and pointed out that it was in the wrong room and he was surprised it had ever been signed off. He said the boiler was classed as "At Risk" and he wanted to turn it off. Given that the work on the house is being done in a fortnight (this will include rectifying the issue with the ventilation) and it's -4c overnight right now we agreed that I'd sign a disclaimer to prevent him from turning off my boiler for now as it would leave me with no heating or hot water, not ideal at this time of year. He's actually the one who'll be doing the work to fit the new vents in a couple of weeks anyway and as I have two CO meters and have jammed the kitchen door open he agreed to let me sign the disclaimer and keep the boiler on until he comes out to fit the new vents in a couple of week's time.

I know that in order to be safe I'm going to be stuck with large and draughty vents in my living room once the works are complete but I just wanted to know if there are any vent baffles or covers that meet regulations to divert the draught at all once the ventilation is fitted? I know you can get cowls for external wall vents to prevent wind blowing directly into the house but I've no idea if these are safe/legal or not?
The current setup in my kitchen right now is two 20cm vents, one high and one low. Both just have a bit of mesh stuck over them so you can see straight outside and when it's windy it blows a full on gale into the kitchen. My understanding of gas regs isn't great (thus me taking advice from the experts) but, from what I can grasp, the new vents are going to need to be bigger to meet regulations so it's going to be pretty chilly in my lounge. Makes the external wall insulation I'm having done a bit pointless really lol. If only I had £3k for a new boiler!

I'll try to get the ventilation fitted somewhere in the lounge where it's not going to freeze me and I wholly understand the necessity for the ventilation in order to ensure the boiler burns properly and doesn't kill me, but any advice on ventilationand minimising cold would be appreciated as I'd rather know what I can and can't have done before the work starts than after it's done 🙂

Thanks in advance!

Sarah

 

[diamondgas]

Hi Sarie, is room solid floor? You could duct under the floorboards if that's possible. Otherwise get the vent fitted as close to the boiler as possible. There'll be a draught from the vent to the fire for sure!

Did the engineer who called not suggest anything to you? Seems weird they didn't!

 

[kirkgas]

If you google stadium vents you will find some with internal baffles that cut the draught but don't cut the air flow, (BM72 springs to mind, not sure if that's the right code or not) I would take the last engineer to task over him signing it off as safe, I assume he took his mums side rather than the correct action, and it makes me think the safety check he didn't wasn't the best, you could consider asking Gas Safe to investigations his competence if you make a complaint about him, it's not good enough to sign these things off of they aren't correct

BM 418 IS THE VENT YOU NEED

 

[kris]

There are loads of houses have the ventilation into the floor boards depending on room and airflow, normally your solum will be ventilated to the outside which can give great airflow,

 

[newcastle phill]

Are you sure no vent louvres/ducts are in an obscure location or on the very bottom edge of the interconnecting door(s).
No chance theyve been wallpapered over inadvertently. ???

Cant understand why someone would go to the trouble of fitting external vents and ommiting internal.

If there's any - internal should be sited 450mm or lower.

 

[Reg Man]

The installation is AT RISK disclaimer or not. As kirk says a stadium Black hole vent has baffles in it to reduce drafts, but must be in the room where the appliance is situated. The existing ventilation in the kitchen I not suitable because it is not big enough, has fly screens and does not have a clear passage to the lounge. Long term, look at a modern day efficient boiler.

 

[Sarie]

Thanks for the replies everyone. Unfortunately I have a concrete floor downstairs so there's no option for underfloor vents in the house. The house is an old 1950's style poured concrete build.
I've checked several times and there are definitely no vents through to the kitchen but I have to wonder if there was even a kitchen door in place when the vents were initially fitted. The boiler is probably over 30 years old so I wouldn't be surprised if when it was fitted the current ventilation setup was deemed acceptable.. it certainly isn't now 🙂

The room is 10 ft wide by 20 ft long and the boiler is bang in the middle of the 20ft length with external walls at either end so unfortunately, no matter where I put the vent, it will be at least 5+ feet away due to the layout of the house. I'll ask the fitter about the BM418 vent, thank you so much! That would be far less draughty than the current arrangement.

I'm completely accepting of the fact that I have to have the vents and I know the result of that is that there'll be a draught and that's preferable to death. I'm just hoping to reduce the draughts when the boiler isn't operational if possible and prevent gales in the house on particularly windy days. I'm based in Scotland so there are plenty of those 😉

I'd love to get a modern day efficient boiler, but the current BBU works very well and there's nothing wrong with it. Having spoken with the gas engineer he suggested a conservative figure of £3k to upgrade to a modern boiler due to the placement of my existing boiler and that's without taking into account sorting out the fireplace after the BBU and outset fire are decomissioned so it's just not financially viable for me at the moment. The plan for now is to sort out the ventilation with the existing BBU and upgrade the heating controls (currently ancient rotary dials) and add a thermostat. I'm also going to get it all serviced as I don't trust the previous owner given they signed off on dodgy ventilation! I think that's the best I can do right now - money is a frustrating limitation sometimes.

Thanks again for all the advice!

 

[kirkgas]

Where abouts are you in Scotland? There are a few of us up here who might be able to help out with a decent quote, (not me, I'm in scotland but don't do any real work anymore haha)

 

[Reg Man]

Even 30 years ago it still would not have complied.

 

[Sarie]

Where abouts are you in Scotland? There are a few of us up here who might be able to help out with a decent quote, (not me, I'm in scotland but don't do any real work anymore haha)

I'm in Dalkeith, Midlothian - just south of Edinburgh 🙂 The chap currently scheduled to do the work is doing it as part of the insulation work I'm having done - he's working with SERS. It's a big home energy scheme they're running up here at the moment so the majority of my street are having the external wall insulation done as we only have to pay 15% of the total bill to get it sorted so it's a ridiculously good deal!
Apparently the insulation will add an extra 5 inches to the depth of the walls so they're having to redo all the ventilation for people with BBUs as at the very least the vents need extending and apparently the situation with my poor ventilation isn't uncommon along the road so they're having to rectify quite a few. They did say that SERS may pick up the tab for the work and absorb it as part of the cost of the insulation works but if they won't then he's quoted me £100 inc VAT to put in the new vent but that's not including the cost of the stadium vent (assuming I can persuade him to fit it).

 

[kirkgas]

Sarie I know where Dalkeith is, I used to be gas manager for Carillion up here and we had a depot in Mayfield, I think £100 is quite expensive for a vent as part of a bigger contract as they are on site, if you need to pay then shop around

 

[Millsy 82]

Instead of having ventilation put in the living room why not use the existing vent and install vent from kitchen to living room. This will mean that the air will have time to warm up in the kitchen before it passes into the living room and I'm sure you would rather have a cooler kitchen than living room.

 

[Sarie]

Thanks guys 🙂 I'm going to contact SERS again and discuss it with them and find out if I'll need to pay them for the work. If I will need to then I think I will shop around if you feel that's expensive as I've no idea what these things are supposed to cost but I hate being ripped off. I have quite a few other jobs that need doing on the house so any money saved is good right now 🙂

Millsy, that's not a bad idea actually... I hadn't really thought about that. The vent in the kitchen could be enlarged and upgraded to regulation standard and they could block up the one at the bottom (not sure why there's two unless one wasn't big enough on its own?). I leave the kitchen door open 99% of the time anyway so the vent internally would really be just to get it to standard so it makes no difference to me having that put in whereas having a vent in the lounge would move the draught into a room I spend a lot of time in! I'll put all of this to SERS and see what they say 🙂

Thanks again for all the help and advice 🙂

 

[kirkgas]

Best option is to put the vent in the same room as the appliance, if you route it from elsewhere there's a chance it will be compromised, and if it goes through 2 or more walls they needs to be 50% bigger then the outside one

 

[Sarie]

Best option is to put the vent in the same room as the appliance, if you route it from elsewhere there's a chance it will be compromised, and if it goes through 2 or more walls they needs to be 50% bigger then the outside one

It'll only need to go through the one wall but I'll have a chat with the chap doing it as to be fair he was fairly adamant he wanted to put it as near the boiler as possible so he may not be open to venting through the kitchen anyway. I guess that's often only done when there's no other option but in my case as there is I think he'll probably refuse to do the through vent anyway. The old outset fires are fairly risky too I suppose so maybe safer to just get it in the lounge.
Appreciate all the advice! 🙂