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fred fred is offline
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Default Improving ventilation under suspended ground floor

In article . com
, charlieB writes
In process of buying 1920's detached house.
Original part of house has suspended wooden ground floor, 20 year old
extensions on south and east sides are solid floor, leaving 4 airbricks
on North wall and 2 on west wall to provide ventillation under original
floor.

Following full structural survey, Surveyor's advice is to make the rest
of the ground floor solid as well - don't really want to do this on
grounds on cost and disruption - and reckon that its overkill as well.

Current state of underfloor timbers cannot be inspected at present, but
there is no real flex in the wood floor.

Does anyone have ant experience of pumping air under the floor to
maintain air movement - thought is to pump air into the South East
corner, "positively pressurizing the underfloor area forcing air to
exit via airbricks in North and West walls.

Unless your surveyor has poked his nose under the floor and sniffed a
problem I think he is being excessively picky. I live in a corner property
built around 1900 which has no ventilation on the west and north facing
walls but 5 airbricks or so between east and south which provide plenty of
ventilation for the whole underfloor. In your case, if there are appropriately
placed gaps in the underbuilding, air will pass from West to North via the
South East corner and there will be no stagnant air, the wind is the pump.
That said, you do need to check that there are openings in the
underbuilding to permit this kind of movement so that means exploring the
underfloor, while you're there, your nose will tell you if there is a damp
problem.
--
fred
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