Hi
We are interested to buy a property which is occupied. Upon pre-purchase inspection it is observed that the rangehood ducting is left in roof cavity. Is this normal practice in Victoria? Is this against any building standard, if yes then how this property got occupancy cert from council?
^^^ This.
Depends on the age of the house, but yes most likely all 'legal' at the time it was built.
If you don't like it, then just vent it to the outside after purchase. Which is what we did.
The property is just 2 year old. I am concern of fire hazard and the impact of this on house insurance..
Then just vent it outside. It's not exactly a big deal.
I am concern of fire hazard
Please complete the following questionnaire:
Q1) Are you cooking meth? Yes? Then vent outside.
Q2) Do you plan on lighting your splash back on fire? Yes? House will already be on fire. Go back to Q1)
Repeat questionnaire until the police respond to the gasses coming from your vent.
My house has rangehood duct left in roof cavity for ages. It's nit about the fire but rather the smell travel funny way. I'm sure if the fire manage to get to the roof cavity then there's a bigger elephant in the room that we haven't talked about.
I would expect pine wood in the roof cavity, haven’t come across rangwood in Australia ;)
Pretty sure current building code require venting of rangehoods and bathrooms to atmosphere. Venting your range hood to ceiling space is less than ideal, but was common practice for a long time.
collecting fossil fuel in the roof space, genius!
Yes quite common in older places and a lot of DIY installs in the past. If your concerned get additional ducting installed. Nowadays (if you get a decent kitchen installer) for a kitchen upgrade on an older place they will duct them to outside. If they can’t then you can opt for a recirculating one.
Does this house has solar panels installed? Some lazy/dodgy solar installers have a practice of dropping the ducting of any vents into the roof cavity so they don't have to move them elsewhere before the panels go in.
No solar panels installed
Valid concern OP. The rangehood ducting to the roof space can over time lead to grease build up there, which of course is a fire hazard. Did you have a building inspection done? what did the inspector say?
You have better chance of setting the truss on fire before getting those grimme and grease caught fire
so you tried getting the truss on fire? How did it go when you compared it to a truss with grease on it?
When you say ducting in roof cavity, is the duct just blowing into the roof cavity or is there an extra piece up there?
If you have a tile roof which lets a lot of air through (if the ceiling space dusty/ dirty? then there is enough airflow for it to be ok), range hood venting into the roof space is not against any building standards (look up BCA or the NCC). It's very common as it's much easier than putting a hole in the roof to go outside.
Unless you're constantly deep frying, don't stress about it and put it on your "things to fix in my new house list"
Depends on when it was built.
Building standards change over time and yes at one point depending on the surface area in the roof space it was ok.
Fyi our place which we recently bought has the bathroom vents to the ceiling space, and our rangehood recirculating (so not external or even in roof space). It was built in 99/2000.