Having a conservatory and question re air bricks

If it catches a lot of sun, overheating will be the problem. Never mind air bricks. You need plenty of opening windows (Ideally all of them) and a large roof fan. Make sure condensation from kitchen/bathroom won't be a problem.

You only need air bricks through to the interior if you have a solid/gas fueled heating appliance in there.

The purpose of air bricks in the past was to ventilate the cavity in a cavity brick wall. Nowadays your cavity will be filled with insulation. Modern houses don't have them.

Jim GM4DHJ ... pretended :

Jim...

Mine, on a concrete raft, was originally built with several of them, some went all the way through to ventilate the rooms - very drafty back then. These were blocked on the inner wall of the cavity in the 80's, then later CWI was added.

I assumed they might be necessary to allow the escape of any moisture which gets in via the outer leaf of the wall. Are you suggesting it would be a good idea to now block up these vents on the outside too?

Our conservatory sits on dwarf walls with vents through two of them. They do not vent the cavity but vent below the suspended timber floor.

Richard

Blocking can lead to rot in timber floors. Some can be blocked, monitoring RH & temp in the cavity for a year can tell a lot. It all depends on the construction details - cavities were once vented because mostly they needed to be.

NT

Tricky Dicky formulated the question :

I'm aware vents are essential for suspended wood ground floors, to prevent rot. Its just where its a slab and cavity wall, I'm interested in.

snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com presented the following explanation :

A quick count round, suggests I have six. 3 large square ones, at higher level, which went all the way through into rooms, kitchen, small bedroom and bathroom, plus 3 brick sized ones a couple of feet higher than the slab - front, side and rear.

The kitchen one had been damaged in the distant past, by the possible installation of a pipe (gas). All of the large ones were bricked up on the inside in the 80's. At that time, the hole in the kitchen one had been messily repaired with sand and cement.

Yesterday I bricked that damaged one up completely, which got me wondering about the need for rest of the vents. I think the small low vent in the rear wall, might be enabling ants to make their way into the kitchen, from the back garden.

Well some have them under the ground floor if its suspended, ie built on a hill etc. Yes heat is the biggest issue with Conservatories these days. I would suggest some air conditioning though it would be nice to be able to store all that heat and use it later. A rock store under the ground with pipes running through it? Brian

Don't be silly.

Vast number of air bricks were and are used to ventilate the voids under suspended floors. If there are cavity walls then the vent passes through both leaves (and any insulation between them). It's all part of the NHBC standards.

I mention this because it's not unknown for a conservatory to be built with a suspended floor.

Modern houses do not need ventilated cavities. If the ground floor is beam and block then there will be some special periscope vents to ventilate the subfloor but that's it.

If cavities needed to be ventilated, why is there a thriving industry to fill them with rockwool or other stuff. Full-fill rockwool cavity batts is a standard new-build spec.