Should a 1989 brick building have vents?

[Vitriolum]

Hi there,

could I ask your advice, we have a brick veneer 1989 building, with recently installed blow-in (silicone treated glasswool) wall insulation. The walls retains heat, day and night, summer or winter. For some reason our walls did not have any brick vents, could these possibly help to release the built up heat? We don't mind if the insulation does not perform as good in winter as we don't use heating and need it to be cooler all year round due to a health condition. We have covered all the basics, shading, draft-proofing, air conditioning and other ventilation. 

Your advice is much appreciated.

[MitchellMc]

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @Vitriolum. It's wonderful to have you join us, and many thanks for your question about wall vents.

Adding brick vents to the exterior of the wall could help dissipate heat held within it. I'm unsure how effective that would be as the vast majority or the heat will be stored with the wall materials. However, they would be effective at venting hot air and reducing the temperature of the cavity. This could be enough to help minimise the heat transferred to the interior wall, which is radiated into the room.

When you say you've covered shading, have you installed retractable awnings that would shade the wall from the extremes of the midday sun? Or, drop-down blinds attached to the underside of the eave and spaced away from the wall will help prevent the wall from receiving direct sunlight. Stopping the sun from hitting the wall in the first place would effectively reduce the buildup of heat within it.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Mitchell
 

[Vitriolum]

Hi Mitchell,

Thank you and I appreciate your insights and suggestions We do have have drop down blinds and awnings and am working on some vertical garden made out of pallets. My partner also said in  case there could be a type of coating that we could apply on the bricks to stop them absorbing heat? (but we can't literally paint it to a different colour) I can imagine the brick is porous and intended to retain heat but if this could be prevented, looks like brick vent installation is rather costly, what are your thoughts if this plus the shading could do the job. 

Thanks again! 

Tina 

[MitchellMc]

I haven't personally encountered a coating for bricks designed to reflect heat @Vitriolum, but I know there are some for roofs. Speaking of your roof, typically, wall cavities vent to the roof cavity as they are open on top. What are the temperatures like up there? Installing roof vents would likely be more cost-effective and efficient than installing brick vents. You can also get powered units that are very effective at evacuating hot air from the roof cavity.

Mitchell

[Vitriolum]

Hi Mitchell,

thanks for pointing that out we have got one of your Bradford units as well as two whirly bird, so temperature on the roof temperature should be alright.

-Tina