Ventilation in 1930s houses - wall vents upstairs

My 1930s house has quite a number of air bricks around it. They ventilate the cavity wall, rather than the rooms.

Which is why the building regs now require windows to have trickle vents in new builds and extensions.

I live in a house from 1939.It has no cavity walls. At ground level the air bricks are below the floor, but have had to have gauze over them to stop wasps. Upstairs the bricks are near the ceiling of all the rooms and the bedrooms chimneys had gas fires fitted up from the coal fires downstairs. There is only one chimney, but its brought from two coal fires below via alcoves eith an arch. Blocking up the chimneys downstairs meant that the bedrooms had a howling gale from the gas fires to the air bricks. The gas fires were removed or blocked off and a special anti resonant cowling fitted on chimney to stop the whole lot sounding like an organ pipe. New the problem with the air bricks was that the ceiling curved at the edges where the eaves are, and the only flat bit was the air brick so the normally wide slide to cover devices could not fit as the sides hit the curved ceilings. Hence we have a number blocked and others with temp bits of cardboard stuck over them. Luckily the loft is insulated, as before we double glazed we used to get icicles on the ceiling due, no doubt to an oil heater we had in the hallway kicking out water vapour. No sign of mould but my bathroom really needs a fan over the air vent in the winter as a nice hot bath makes the walls run with water at the moment. Brian

Our Victorian much modified timber frame farmhouse did not appear to have any original air inlets for the cooking range or the fire openings in each room. Late '30's doors/windows were never a good fit but the bedroom fire openings had been closed off and sliding vents fitted. (point for the O/P; chimney condensation issues).

Eek. How many Kilowatts of leccy do you use every year ?. I seem to recollect that you don't have gas, and heating a solid-walled, ?poorly insulated property with electric must be difficult and expensive.

been like that since at least the early 70's in Scotland anyway...adjustable 3500 mm SQ trickle vent to the outside in a window or an airbrick in the external wall....or a permanent vent above the door into the hall....all min 2m above floor level...Englandshire bound to be the same....

No (to the latter).

I feel sorry for landlords in this respect (i'm not one).

I see tenants pissing and moaning in the local rag/Facebook etc about 'damp'. Especially the workshy ones who are in all day. Arms folded and compo-face scowling at a mouldy wall.

We've a dehumidifier on in the room we dry clothes in and always crack the upstairs windows open for a few hours while we aren't using the rooms.

If we don't we get 'damp', especially where there is furniture or similar up against the walls.

strange