Check if your kitchen ventilation system works

As long as the ventilation in the apartment in the kitchen normally performs its functions, you do not pay attention to it. But as soon as the system fails, and life in the house once becomes uncomfortable (and in many cases unsafe!). Faced with my own experience with this problem, I will say with confidence: it is necessary to check the ventilation and repair it as necessary, and it is not too difficult. I'll tell you everything in order.

Anxiety symptoms

A few months ago, I began to notice that the apartment was stuffy. Had to open the windows more often, extraneous odors appeared. In cold weather, the windows quickly fogged up, and if, for example, you put a kettle on the stove, the condensate was already running down the glass with real trickles.

At first, these alarming signs were not given importance, but gradually the whole family began to notice that the microclimate in the apartment was getting worse. I had to remember the old ways to check ventilation and get down to business:

• A piece of paper brought to the ventilation grill was not only not attracted to the plastic, but even not fluttering under the stream of air.
• The lighter’s light, brought to the outlet, remained almost motionless.

Do not repeat my mistake - do not expect the ventilation problem to resolve itself. Found a deterioration in her work - immediately take action!

All symptoms indicated that the ventilation in the apartment was not doing its job. It was already impossible to ignore this, and I began to study the pages of the forums in order to understand how to proceed.

Poor ventilation is dangerous

I will say right away that what I read scared me quite a bit. It turned out that problems with updating the air in the apartment are dangerous. They can cause significant health problems and material damage:

• Constant humidity and mustiness are excellent conditions for the development of molds and bacteria. Getting into the lungs when breathing, they can cause an allergic reaction, bronchitis, pneumonia and other acute and chronic diseases. The danger is especially high for children, the elderly, as well as adult asthmatics and allergy sufferers.
• Fungal colonies spoil the decoration of walls and ceilings, furniture and other things. If you start the situation, it will be easier to throw out damaged items and make a major overhaul than to clean up mold spots.
• Stuffy forces to open windows for ventilation. But heat flies into the windows and transoms, which means that the apartment will be cold and uncomfortable.

All this only strengthened me in the desire to deal with the problem as soon as possible.

First step: check the grilles and windows

To begin with, I decided to make sure that the problem is not in my apartment. Armed with a long piece of hard wire, a screwdriver, a strip of paper and a rag, he climbed to inspect the outlets in the kitchen, bathroom, and living quarters. First, I took out each grate and thoroughly cleaned the inside of dust and dirt. The kitchen outlet turned out to be the most problematic; its grate was heavily overgrown with fat, tightly cementing dust and cobwebs.

After checking the perfumes, checking the air flow (using a burning match and a piece of paper) showed a slight improvement. But it was obviously not possible to achieve decisive success.

Then, using a wire probe, I checked how long it was (about 2 m) that there was no blockage in the shafts of the ventilation system. Sometimes bird nests, construction debris, fallen leaves, clods of dust and cobwebs can block the gap.However, I was not able to detect any foreign objects.

I decided to ignore one more typical reason why the air stagnates (plastic windows). The fact is that even when placing the order, we discussed with the consultant of the company that manufactures window constructions the presence of supply valves in them. These devices constantly pass air from the street in very small portions. But if there are no such valves in the windows, they can cause problems.

Step two: go to the neighbors

After making sure that the problem was not due to a blockage in the apartment, I went to the neighbors. The purpose of my trip was to find out if someone had recently installed a powerful hood in the kitchen or if the ventilation duct was blocked during the overhaul.

Suggest that the source of problems is the neighbor hood, the appearance of odors (cooking food, tobacco) that are clearly not related to the events in your apartment.

I walked around the three apartments located above my housing along the ventilation riser. In two apartments, the neighbors willingly made contact (we have most of the tenants in the entrance, we have known each other for a long time). True, they didn’t open it in one apartment, but a cross-poll of neighbors made it possible to find out that its tenants had not conducted construction work recently and did not buy household appliances.

Step three: contact the HOA

Maintain the ventilation system of the house in working condition is the direct responsibility of the HOA (or CC). Therefore, making sure that the problem was not related to my housing or neighboring apartments, I headed to the office. There I had to do the following:

• To inform the chairman (he can be replaced by an authorized employee) about the problem.
• Write a request to clean the ventilation ducts. The application must be made in two copies, and one should be left to himself, not forgetting to register it with the HOA (filing date, seal of the organization and signature of the employee who accepted the application for work).

Literally the next day (we agreed on the time in advance), representatives of the HOA came to me. They took measurements of the air flow passing through the outlet, then we together drew up the act that the ventilation system at home is not working quite efficiently.

About a week later, a HOA employee called me and informed me that work had been done to eliminate blockage in the attic. The cause of the malfunction was construction debris that fell into the pipe. After this conversation, I once again checked the operation of the air vents and immediately noticed the difference: the sheet seemed to be glued to the ventilation grill.

In the end I will say: do not be afraid to take action! This is not at all difficult to do, and the result is clearly worth the effort.

Author: Yu. Mikhailovich