How to close old aircon vents?

[nsavi]

 

 

Hello

I have couple of old aircon vents across the house that I want to close. Any suggestions on how this can be achieved please?

Thank you 

[Remarka6le]

Hey @nsavi 

How old are the vents? Are they constantly opened or can you close them off via a mechanism? Or are you talking about the holes made from wall mounted Aircons and you need to patch it up? Just a little hard to help without more information, if you can provide a picture of the vents we can help you better  

[nsavi]

I am sorry @Remarka6le I thought I uploaded the images.

These are the vents on the ceiling for the centralised heating or cooling. These are from an older installation and are not needed anymore.

[Jason]

Hi @nsavi,

Many thanks for your question. 

If you are no longer going to have central heating and cooling, I would remove the vent covers and then cover the holes with new plasterboard using the technique in the video below. 

Let me tag @EricL to see how he would go about the repair.

Jason

[CSParnell]

Hey @nsavi awesome you have come here for advise on Workshop.

It's definitely not a job out if a reach fir a DIY but it will take some planning and patience.

You will firstly need to know how thick the original plater board is more than likely 10mm but you don't want to install 10mm to find out it is 13mm so a measure first by removing the face plate and surround then measure with a good quality ruler is always best or measure with a tape measure starting on 100mm rather than 0mm.

From there you need to measure how wide the hole is and then allow 100mm each side this will be the lengths of each 70x35mm pine battens.

Allow minimum 4 battens across the hole.

Get yourself some plaster board screws 25mm is fine.

Some joining tape.

Some base coat and some top coat.

Small tub of gyrock glue

A good trowel and pallet for the mud to go on.

A good drop sheet too.

A sharp Stanley knife 

A gyprock saw.

Sandpaper 120g and 240g 

Sanding block

So once your setup and ready remove the old vent and dust off the roof, with your knife shave a 45deg bevel to the hole in the ceiling. Measure the cut out and then transfer that to the new sheet if plaster and cut that out with your knife by score and snap or by a gyprock saw.

Bevel the edge of the new piece too.

Install your timber battens, slap some glue on and screw them either end to the existing ceiling, on the edge overlap so so can screw down the sides.

Slap some glue on the battens and then place the new piece up on the timbers and screw it off until it's fixed off nice.

After it has dried take the joining tape and measure and cut the length of each sides then take the base coat and apply a layer across the join all the way around then put the tape on top of the wet mud and then apply another layer of base coat pushing firm with the trowel, scrap off any excess.

Once that is dry you want to apply 2 coats of top coat allowing to dry between coats.

After they have dried its time to start sanding starting with 120g and then 240g, you may need to touch up with some top coat but you don't want to go real thick with your layers otherwise you have lots of sanding to do.

Don't forget you need some good PPE, safety glasses and a good dust mask along with a good sturdy ladder.

I hope that helps some and I'm sure there are many videos online to watch for more advise.

Carl

[EricL]

Hello @nsavi

Thanks for sharing your question about how to cover up your old aircon vents. It's great that you've received in-depth advice from @CSParnell. His recommendation for the repair is spot on. I've placed a visual guide below to give you an idea of how to carry out the repair job. My only other suggestion is to make sure that you cover your appliances with drop sheets as the plaster dust will get on everything within the vicinity of the repair. 

If you are doing one or two vents a few repair panels should be sufficient. However, if you are doing more than two it will be more practical to purchase a full panel. 

Here is a handy step-by-step guide: How to patch plaster

If you need further assistance, please let us know.

Eric

[MikeTNZ]

Hi @EricL,

That was what we were all looking for, explained perfectly, with pictures!

Cheers,

Mike T.