Patio too high Victorian property, covering air brick

I am presuming you have suspended wooden floors, in which case there will be no air flow under the floors this will create all sorts of issues & rot in the timbers supporting your floor including in extreme cases your floor failing, the other thing it will create if above the damp proof course is penetrating damp. your patio should be at least 150mm/6 inches below the vents i

Without seeing the actual property I would offer the following. Building a hard paved surface against, what might be a solid brick walled property, (i.e. no cavity wall) is not advised. Building it over or within less than 6 inches of airbricks is going to compromise airflow to the suspended timber floors. This can cause stagnation of the subfloor airflow and allow rot to set in within the flooring timbers If there is already evidence of water splashing up from the paving onto the wall you are at risk in the long term of breaching the damp proof course and allowing water to penetrate the walls causing damp inside your home. In the near term, where relaying the patio is beyond your budget I would recommend that you cut back, where possible the hard surface and introduce pea gravel or similar water penetrable border against the house. This should be lowered where possible to expose all airbricks. It will also limit the amount of water splashback thereby keeping damp out of the base of the wall and your home. Longer-term I would relay the patio of even build a suspended external deck structure which would allow you to lower any groundwater which is hard against the external walls of your home. Because I am a belt a braces kind of person I would put in a land drain against the external walls which wicks away groundwater.

You definitely need to do something! I would advise getting some-one out To check which way the fall is on the paving, cutting away 6" along the house And as a temporary measure , lay some aco drain channeling or gravel to keep the water at bay. As soon as you can afford it re-do the paving to a correct Level/ fall. Regards Kev.

You can cut a aco drain between the patio and house to catch any water that is draining towards house. This can have a gap away from the wall as well to free up air bricks. The Aco's can either join into you present storm drain or you can have a channel cut to drain elsewhere on you property.

Hi the most cost effective & speedy course of action would be to cut the existing patio back 6 inches away from the property & break out a chanel that could be filled with gravel below the air vent & damp proof level. This should improve ventilation, reduce damp & stop rain water splashing back on to the render. Hope this helps.