Do I need to fix this properly?

[Graeme McClinton]

When I moved house 2 years ago, I wanted to wire a couple of rooms up with ethernet.

One of the rooms was my man cave, which is part of an extension that was done long before I moved.

I decided I would need to run the cables through the attic to the man cave, but there was a problem; the brick wall between the original house and the extended roof/attic space.

(The extension roof void is not accessible)

So I drilled a hole with a large masonry bit, only to find...daylight! I'd estimated where the mancave attic space would be, and got it wrong!

Oh dear, thought I, I'll need to try again, but get it right this time.

Which I did, and got it wrong again!

So, on the third attempt, I got it right, but I now had two inch wide holes from my attic out to the elements!

I've filled them with expanding foam from the inside, and I could see that it did protrude to the outside of the house.

My question is, do I really need to get this rendered, or mortared up or whatever?

The holes aren't noticeable, as they are on the side of the house, above the garage.

I've just lived with the expanding foam for two years, but it's been bugging me that I might be causing myself future problems.

My main reasons for not fixing are that I've not told my other half about the stupidity, and she will go off on one when she finds out.

And, although I could probably mix up some mortar to fill in myself, I am not good with heights, don't have a tall enough ladder to get up onto the garage roof, and don't know if said roof would take my weight anyway (21st)

So I would need to engage a builder for a very small job.

What say you?

 

[Nigel_Cro]

Buy a couple of vent covers, fix them over the holes and swear blind you are increasing the ventilation to the loft space??

Having said that, if it was me and the wall is single skin brick, I would chop out the drilled bricks and replace. Filling the holes with pug will work, but you will always notice it (or is it just me?) and over time it will probably shrink and fail and need re-doing.

 

[Graeme McClinton]

What do you mean by single skinned? Its a normal cavity wall. Does that make a difference?

 

[Nigel_Cro]

If it is a cavity wall you have drilled through two bricks, inner and outer skins. I suppose it doesn't actually make any difference to fixing it, although you can get away with a less robust fixing on the inner skin.

I would definitely fix it though, apart from keeping the weather out, you need to keep the critters out. Rats and/or mice or even birds can get into surprisingly small holes and that is the last thing you need!