First time home owner learning how to renovate, dealing with neighbours smoke coming in.

[Joel]

Hi there, this is my introduction post.

 

I recently purchased a 1960s ex-council flat which is in need of some renovations. I've never done anything like this before so I've been browsing this excellent forum to learn what I can.

Currently I'm dealing with smoke ingress from the neighbour's apartments. I assume this is coming from porous wall sections hidden under the floorboards. I have resolved to pull up the floors and try my best to seal things up before installing a mechanical ventilation system. I would be grateful to hear thoughts or advice for dealing with a situation like this.

[ToughButterCup]

Welcome.

Smoke - getting in your eyes yet? (sorry)

 

Have you talked to your neighbour about the issue yet?  I ask because together,  you'll solve the problem more quickly.  Yep: it'll be an exercise in diplomacy, but worth the effort I think.

[Joel]

Thanks for the welcome

We have spoken to him about it and he admits that he smokes, but he insists it's not possible it's coming into our home. He is a bit volatile so we have resolved not to try and push him on it. It seems unlikely we'd convince him to quit smoking, and the alternative is him smoking in the neighbouring garden or outside our front door which would actually be worse for us since we wouldn't be able to open our windows 😅.

It seems to me that there are other good reasons to try to stop air coming from neighbouring apartments ( I think the upstairs neighbours smoke too, and sometimes we get food cooking smells as well ), and the benefits of an air ventilation system ( removing alergens, fresh air etc.) seem to me to be worth the effort anyways. So I thought why not do it and see if it solves the problem before escalating things with our neighbours. As my dad always said -- good fences make good neighbours.

[ProDave]

Oh the joys of living joined to other properties.

 

I recall a previous semi detached house, where every Sunday, I could smell next doors cabbage boiling in their kitchen.  A quick look under the floorboards showed very poor pointing on the party wall brickwork with most of the perps not fully buttered.  Not a lot you could unless you wanted to take all the boards up along the entire length of that wall.

[joe90]

Perhaps you could create positive pressure within the house, just depends where you could get “clean” air from I guess.

[ProDave]

9 minutes ago, joe90 said:

Perhaps you could create positive pressure within the house, just depends where you could get “clean” air from I guess.

Yes constant slow running PIV into bathrooms and kitchen might ensure your neighbours smells don't enter.  If the bathrooms are on a party wall, they may even benefit from your "exhaust air"

[ToughButterCup]

Ughhhh... ex-smoker here. I can now smell if someone's smoking in the next village .  ExFagAshFiends like me are the worst. 

 

I thought you meant wood-smoke from a fire.....  But when - in the pub say - when anyone can smell the smoke on the clothes of the DoorWayDesperates who come in after a quick puff outside, you have an enormous job on your hands. In the days when people sent one another letters - remember them - I could easily tell if the sender had been smoking.  And it must be so much worse for you.

 

The only way is to create a positive air pressure in your house: and thats going to cost you.  Sorry, I wish I could be more positive. 

[saveasteading]

I wonder if an absence of perpend's may be deliberate  to allow air flow between air bricks.

 

However, it's more important that the air bricks are clear, which is often not the case. 

So would first check they are clear, and some of the smoke might drift away.

Also, more importantly the neighbours air bricks.

 

But how is it getting down there anyway? 

Next I'd think of laying a sheet of dpm over the offending wall if there is crawl space. probably fixed under the joists with a batten.

1 hour ago, Joel said:

food cooking smells as well

why is it always cabbage? When I was a Christmas posty, there was a whiff from every letterbox. Sometimes pleasant, more often  doggy or cabbage.

It rather depended on the area. But I don't think that many people eat cabbage so it must be something else.

[Joel]

1 hour ago, joe90 said:

Perhaps you could create positive pressure within the house, just depends where you could get “clean” air from I guess.

 

1 hour ago, ToughButterCup said:

The only way is to create a positive air pressure in your house: and thats going to cost you.  Sorry, I wish I could be more positive. 

I had thought PIV as well. I toyed with the prospect of it being a simple job ( ie not pulling up floors), but after discussing with my partner we decided we wanted to take an overkill approach. The reason is because both of us have health issues which can be exasperated by cigarette smoke, so we decided it was a priority to do everything we could to address the problem. Given the house needs renovating anyways I don't mind pulling up the floors (most of the boards are exposed at the moment anyways). The last thing I want is to do renovations only to discover that PIV isn't sufficient and so have to pull up new floors anyways. So my plan has been to get under there and see how comprehensive a seal I can create. But then my second thought was that currently the flat has no mold or moisture buildup problems, and this is almost surely due to very good air flow within the building, so this is leading me to seriously consider a mechanical ventilation system. I understand this could also have the effect of introducing a positive pressure in the flat. I have money saved for renovations, so I don't mind investing in a permanent fix.

 

19 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

I wonder if an absence of perpend's may be deliberate  to allow air flow between air bricks.

 

However, it's more important that the air bricks are clear, which is often not the case. 

So would first check they are clear, and some of the smoke might drift away.

Also, more importantly the neighbours air bricks.

 

But how is it getting down there anyway? 

Next I'd think of laying a sheet of dpm over the offending wall if there is crawl space. probably fixed under the joists with a batten.

why is it always cabbage? When I was a Christmas posty, there was a whiff from every letterbox. Sometimes pleasant, more often  doggy or cabbage.

It rather depended on the area. But I don't think that many people eat cabbage so it must be something else.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by an absence of perpend? Also where might I find the air bricks? The flat is two storeys, and most if not all of the smell is coming from under the floorboards of the second storey (and out from the light fixtures in the ceiling of the first floor), so I can only conclude there are gaps or porous wall exposed in that space.
To seal things up I had been recommended applying Aerosana Vsiconn and using fibre paint for bigger voids and air tight tape for joints etc.

The food smells are actually usually some kind of ragu -- I don't mind it so much, it usually makes me hungry!
 

[saveasteading]

20 minutes ago, Joel said:

Can you elaborate on what you mean by an absence of perpend? Also where might I find the air bricks?

sorry for the jargon.   anyway, these are under a suspended ground floor, which I'd wrongly assumed. so ignore that.

 

You are getting smells from the ceiling between the ground floor  and the first floor?

[Joel]

10 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

You are getting smells from the ceiling between the ground floor  and the first floor?

Yes that's right, between the ground floor and first floor.  In particular where the living room light fixture is and also up from between the floor boards on the first floor.

[ProDave]

58 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

sorry for the jargon.   anyway, these are under a suspended ground floor, which I'd wrongly assumed. so ignore that.

 

You are getting smells from the ceiling between the ground floor  and the first floor?

That is exactly what I had in that previous house.  If you lifted a first floor floorboard and looked at the party wall, it was a 9" solid brick wall with poorly pointed brickwork.  The perp ends are the perpendicular, i.e. upright ends of the bricks and there was very little mortar on them with lots of gaps.  So the cooking smells from next doors kitchen could get up into the ceiling void, probably through light fitting holes, and then through all the gaps in the party wall through to the ceiling void in my house and then out into the rooms.

 

Expanding air tight foam would be the easiest way to seal them but you would need the whole run of floorboards the length of the party wall lifted to get full access.

 

The rest of the party wall was probably build with similarly poor pointing, but the plaster on the walls made that more air tight.

[Joel]

12 minutes ago, ProDave said:

That is exactly what I had in that previous house.  If you lifted a first floor floorboard and looked at the party wall, it was a 9" solid brick wall with poorly pointed brickwork.  The perp ends are the perpendicular, i.e. upright ends of the bricks and there was very little mortar on them with lots of gaps. 

I pulled up a floor board that was loose and I think you're right.

 

[saveasteading]

Do the floor boards run parallel with the party wall? If so, you could lift one or two and stuff the ceiling space with insulation.

 

Stop press.

Picture just in. Can you confirm what we are looking at?

Edited December 29, 2023 by saveasteading

[Joel]

4 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Do the floor boards run parallel with the party wall? If so, you could lift one or two and stuff the ceiling space with insulation.

No perpendicular. I'll probably just have to pull them all up I think.

[Joel]

13 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Picture just in. Can you confirm what we are looking at?

This is under the floor board just above the stairs on the first floor. The wall is not party to the smoking neighbour but party to our neighbour on the other side. I can only assume that the smoking neighbour party wall is similar.

[TonyT]

How old is the property?

[SteamyTea]

These days, flats are designed to stop smoke coming in if there is a fire. This is why Grenville residence where told to stay in their flats. 

If you are going to do a major refurbishment, it may be worth looking up the latest regulations regarding fires in flats.

 

I have noticed my neighbour has taken up smoking, that leaves just one non smoker out if the 6 houses where I am.

[Joel]

14 minutes ago, TonyT said:

How old is the property?

I believe the apartment block was built in 1957

[TonyT]

Is it a timber floor/ joist system?

 

Cause you could have ground floor lighting under your floor with your power cabling.

 

common when flats were wired.

something else to watch out for!

[Jilly]

Also look out for asbestos. Have anything suspect tested, it wasn’t expensive last time I did it with small double bagged samples of some unidentified grey stuff.

[Ferdinand]

56 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

These days, flats are designed to stop smoke coming in if there is a fire. This is why Grenville residence where told to stay in their flats. 

If you are going to do a major refurbishment, it may be worth looking up the latest regulations regarding fires in flats.

 

I have noticed my neighbour has taken up smoking, that leaves just one non smoker out if the 6 houses where I am.

 

OT: IIRC Grenfell was an early 1970s build, so would probably be before such design practices came in.

[SteamyTea]

43 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

 

OT: IIRC Grenfell was an early 1970s build, so would probably be before such design practices came in.

I think it had been upgraded a few times, unfortunately the badly fitted external cladding was one of them.

 

But no matter, you don't want your neighbours fire filling your home with potentially deadly fumes.

[Ferdinand]

Welcome @Joel .

1 - If I have it right, you are in a 1st floor flat experiencing an ingress of smoke from downstairs.

 

2 - The aim is to keep the smoke out. I'd make 2 points:

 

3 - For simplicity, you can also look at this from above the floor, if you include a membrane (eg DPC polythene sheet - comes in 4m width so easy to do).

You could, for example, lay a click-fit laminate floor over a 2 layer combo of membrane and a layer of normal laminate sponge-base. Seal the edges carefully, ideally by wrapping up behind skirting boards and sealing the membrane / wall join, and that should help a great deal.

If you use a click fit system you can potentially take it up again and then do the harder underfloor option if you find it not good enough. So you get to try the easy way first.

 

The only click-fit system I use in house renovations is Uniclic from Quick Step, because I know it is suitable to be taken up and put back down. And it comes with a 25 year guarantee (or did last time I bought some).

4 - Then look into PIV (or through the wall ASHP units if you want heating, dehumidifying, and ventilating as well) to use mechanical ventilation to help.

 

I think that for smoke particles and smells you will need an activated carbon filter which will need periodic replacement.

 

5 - There are other ways of applying a seal, such as sealing between all your floorboards.

In any case I would aim to get any low hanging fruit too, such as raise one floorboards and seal the light fitting carefully.

 

8 hours ago, ToughButterCup said:

Welcome.

Smoke - getting in your eyes yet? (sorry)

 

 

A chance for some bonus Christmas Zoot. Alas, I also cannot resist 😉.