Installing a Vent - through brickwork

[damien]

Hi all,

Okay todays job is installing a vent that hooks up to the clothes dryer.

The easy past: Hooking up the flexible piping from the dryer and cutting a hole in the wall for the piping.

The hard part: Cutting a hole in the external brick work to install the outside vent.

Basically I need to cut a round hole about 10cm in diameter in the brickwork to install this vent so when the clothes dry is on instead of it just blowing in the laundry it blows out through the piping out through the vent.

Yes our dryer is designed to have the option of the vent fitment.

I just dont know how i cut a hole in the brickwork, any thoughts please?

[addo]

Concrete cutting firm. It'll cost you about $165 and take fifteen minutes tops. I use a mob in Baulkham Hills (can't remember the name offhand, but from memory the phone number stars with 9624 and the boss is David). They're in the papers and Yellow Pages.

Cheers, Adam.

[damien]

Thanks for the reply , is there any DIY option?

[Planned LScape]

The more labour intensive way would be to get a decent hammer drill, a decent masonry bit and drill around a marked circle, holes as close as possible to one another without them falling into one another

Then you can carefully use a bolster, cold chisel etc to basically join the dots and take out the circle. I did it a few years back when re-doing my stormwater and fitting a 90mm pipe through the brickwork to under the house

[echnidna]

The more labour intensive way would be to get a decent hammer drill, a decent masonry bit and drill around a marked circle, holes as close as possible to one another without them falling into one another

Then you can carefully use a bolster, cold chisel etc to basically join the dots and take out the circle. I did it a few years back when re-doing my stormwater and fitting a 90mm pipe through the brickwork to under the house

That's exactly what I did when I put my dust extractor outside the shed and ran duct tube through the wall

[Honorary Bloke]

The more labour intensive way would be to get a decent hammer drill, a decent masonry bit and drill around a marked circle, holes as close as possible to one another without them falling into one another

Then you can carefully use a bolster, cold chisel etc to basically join the dots and take out the circle. I did it a few years back when re-doing my stormwater and fitting a 90mm pipe through the brickwork to under the house

Wot he said. Just pack the hole around the vent with an expanding caulk to seal out the critters.

[Barry_White]

Hi Damien

I used to install oil heaters and quite often had to make a 125mm dia hole through brick walls and I used to drill a series of 3/8 holes around the circumference of the 125mm hole and a few in the inside of the circle with an electric hammer or rotary hammer drill then knock it out with a masonry chisel.

It is slow work and may take a couple of hours. Maybe go to Bunnings and get one of the Ozitso $69.00 Rotary Hammer drills and make life a bit easier.

When you get the hole through the wall and get the pipe through you could patch it up with some sand and cement.

[damien]

thanks guys

Although the vent has a 10cm hole, on the outside it is a nice square measuring about 12cm x 12cm which will hide any small mistakes of knocking out too much brick work.

[scottyb]

1 brick height plus mortar joins = 96mm, so you could just drill/chisel out the mortar joints on top, bottom and one end of a full brick. Then grind/drill/bolster a vertical cut 100mm from the end of the brick and knock out the that bit. Drilling out the mortar joints will take about 10mins, levering a 10mm masonry bit from side to side afer initially drilling through. Far easier than drilling a circle of holes through solid bricks.

[Smurf]

I'm about to do the very same thing. Actually came on here to post about it then found this thread.

A question about structural integrity however.

I have a concrete ramp (open below) to the back door which on one side seems to be supported by the house / brickwork (just bought the place, haven't throughly checked out how the ramp is attached).

Anyway, the brick wall is presumably carrying a bit of weight there. Ideally I would like to put the vent under the ramp (duct from the dryer, through the floor under the trough (nice and hidden) then outside under the ramp).

But what about structural things? Is there a "right" place to put the hole between the bricks? Or is anywhere OK? I was thinking maybe to put it at one end of a brick so that the brick above is still supported at both ends. Since the duct is plastic, it obviously won't do anything in a structural sense - just a hole.

Sorry if this question sounds a bit dumb, but I know nothing about brick laying.

Another one, it says in the dryer instructions that the duct should be surrounded by steel pipe where it goes through a wall or ceiling. I assume this is in case of fire? In that case presumably I should put it in a steel pipe where it goes through the floor but won't have to worry about the wall since the bricks aren't flammable?