An underfloor experience

I have a brick house, with timber floor boards. And I needed to get under the house. Fortunately, there is a timber access door at the side of the house to allow access under the floor. The block is on a slight slope, which means that there’s more clearance under the floorboards on one side of the building than the other end. Guess which side the builder put the access door? Was it the side with very little space or on the other end where there is plenty of room? It’s on the side with less room, of course. Why do builders do things like that? What do they think about? Saving bricks, or are they having a joke at someone else’s expense?

So with the little wooden door wide open, I got down on the ground ready to crawl through. I lay flat on my back on the concrete path immediately outside the access door. My head was on the ground closest to the entrance. Using my elbows, back, hips and heels I began to wriggle inside. I had about 6 inches clearance on either side of my arms as I squirmed through. There was only about 3 inches between my chest and the timber structure of the floorboards above me as I lay flat on my back. Thankfully, the clearance above me increased the further I moved inside, and the further I went the easier it became to move. After a time I was able to roll over and crawl comfortably, and as the ground level fell away I could almost walk the rest of the distance. Yes, I had to get to the other end.

A timber decking had recently been added along the front of this house. It had been erected as a home improvement, and with the veranda that was part of the project is really a very nice spot to sit and admire the view. As I’m moving through under the floor boards I can see the air vent holes that are built into the brick exterior wall. I can also see the where the timber has been mounted to secure the decking. It’s been placed right over the top of the air vents. Goodbye air vents. That was a great job somebody did in erecting the decking.

The tradesmen who did this (sorry, I should say the people who did this, because they couldn’t have been tradesmen) could have left some gaps around the vents. How difficult would it have been? Presumably there will be enough other vents around the place to allow some air to circulate under the house.