Hopefully an easy one for you, hope it's in the right forum.

I bought a house last year, and we suffer from quite bad condensation. We get it all over the house, in the bathroom, bedrooms, downstairs and even in the loft. We've taken steps to improve it, by having vents fitted in the roof to stop the loft space sweating, which seems to have sorted that. We've had an extractor fitted in the bathroom (didn't have one before).

We suffer downstairs due to the open plan of the house, the two sitting rooms are knocked through, with the kitchen (without door) off the back room. Add double glazing to the equation and you can see my problem.

There are two chimney breasts on the gable end, which go all the way to the top. Think there are some sort of cowells on top. The front room has a living flame gas fire and the back room is bricked up. My question..finally...is this. Would it help the condensation problem if I was to fit vents on the chimney breasts? Was thinking of putting one on the backroom breast and one on each chimeny breast in the upstairs bedrooms. Will this help?

If so, how would I go about it? Can I just measure the vents, mark them, and drill a number of holes through the first layer of brick into the chimney?

Hi Fergal,

Any ventilation is gonna help your situation! Are the fireplaces open but blocked underneath? If so, generally a vent is fitted there so as not to look unsightly.

S

Your main concern should be CO and whether you wake up in the morning, if you fit vents in the flue with a gas fire fitted.

Are the stacks joined or separate.

Is the gas fire flue lined.

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Thanks for the replies. I'm not sure about the front chimney stack, the gas fire is in the downstairs front room, so perhaps there would be an issue with the upstairs front bedroom, so will leave well alone for now. The rear stack has been bricked up and there is no fire in that. Don't think they're joined, but will check.

On closer inspection, it looks like the 2 chimneys join into one stack at the top.

The question then is, is there a flue liner for the fire, and is it in good condition.

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I don't know Scruff, I'll take a pic and try to upload so you've got a better idea.