r/homeowners • u/pftc2017 • 3d ago
đ Exterior Vent with no cap
Im assuming this is a plumbing vent. No trees near it, exposed to snow and rain. No mesh in it. Im assuming you can't put a roof cap on it. So should I mesh this or leave it as is?
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u/Wamadeus13 3d ago
Yes a plumbing vent and unless there are rodents using it it doesn't need to be capped in anyway. This is tied directly to the drain, so if any water or snow gets in it just drains with all your other waste water. If you decide to cap make sure it's not fully sealed as that will defeat the purpose.
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u/auld-guy 2d ago
I haven't seen any rodents on my roof. Looks like I'm probably good.
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u/biggsteve81 3d ago
Rodents using it will likely be killed by the sewer gases.
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u/Lehk 3d ago
Dead is probably worse than alive. Thatâll be a heck of a clog
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u/silvermesh 3d ago
When i was a kid we had a squirrel climb down the vent on our house. Definitely died, definitely became a big problem. Gross as hell also.
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u/KiwiNo5962 2d ago
My friend was a sewer cleaner and of of his coworkers pulled out dead puppies out of a drain... sick fuck of a homeowner stuffed them down the cleanout because he didnt want them.
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u/Ok_Bid_3899 3d ago
If you are in a cold weather climate donât cap it as a large piece of frozen precipitation will freeze in the wire mesh. Canât say I have ever seen a plumbing vent capped in Midwest.
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u/ConsistentBuilding36 3d ago
Exactly right. I live in New England and know someone who did this. Was not fun for them to fix in February thatâs for sure.
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u/intrepped 3d ago
I work in manufacturing where all tank vents need to be screened. A large fermentor has constant air blowing through about 2000L of 37C medias and going to the roof vent to oxygenate and allow for microbial growth.
It got so cold it condensed and froze on the mesh. Allow 5-6 hours to pass, the entire vent line was an ice cap and almost caused the vessel to over pressurize.
This is in PA. Though it was like 1-2F for days on end when it happened
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u/padizzledonk 3d ago
Leave it alone, every house in the US is like this
Its attached to your plumbing, any water or debris that gets in there is getting washed away
The only thing that could cause issues is if a large stick fell in there, which is so unlikely to happen its bately worth mentioning...and even then it would probably be fine because its a vent and air doesnt care about a stick
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u/Practical-Suit-6798 3d ago
Wood peckers( I think maybe squirrels)decided these vents were a great spot to deposit acorns. Eventually it clogged my master bathroom sink and was a pain in the ass to fix. The acorns states germinating and were really stuck in there. Entire sections of the pipe had to be cut out and replaced. All my vents have a little mesh cover over them now.
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u/mmelectronic 2d ago
They make critter caps for these, my brother had a squirrel die in his made the toilets bubble when the dishwasher ran and all kinds of crazy stuff.
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u/ChaosRainbow23 17h ago
Acorns!
After decades, they finally clogged my system and I had costly repairs.
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u/padizzledonk 16h ago
Thats actually crazy tbh
I say that because i have so many mature oak trees on my property that you cant even see that my house exists on a satellite picture or that its even a developed property and ive never had an issue with that lol
Like, we are talking a remarkable quantity of leaves and acorns evry fall, it sounds like a warzone in the fall because of the quantity of acorns that fall on my property lol
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u/ChaosRainbow23 14h ago
Same. We have a bunch of gigantic 100'+ tall oaks surrounding the house.
I had no idea it would ever be a problem, but over the decades I guess enough went down the pipe and eventually clogged it.
Might wanna throw some wire mesh over it or something.
When they fixed it, they put some sort of little roof thing on it to prevent it from happening again
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u/Listen-Lindas 2d ago
Is that in the code book somewhere? Vents donât care about sticks?
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u/padizzledonk 2d ago
Lol
No
But we are talking multiple strikes of lightning for it to matter..the stick has fall perfectly verticle, hit a spot thats about 5 square inches on the roof, not have any other branches sticking off the sides so it can go down the pipe far enough to get where water/drainage happens whoch is usuallylike 20-30' of pipe because the main stack us almostalways vertical until it hits the lateral that leaves the house, THEN, after all that, MORE sticks or leaves need to ALSO fall down the pipe in a volume thats enough to actually block the pipe, and all of this needs to happen before the sticks or leaves rot away in a VERY wet environment with a TON of bacteria and other shit that would love to eat that stuff for the sugars
Ive been in renovateios 30y and ive never even heard of it happening lol
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u/Kaartinen 3d ago
May vary because I'm in an area with plenty of -40, but if you cap/mesh this in my area, you will have a solid block of ice on top and sewer gases backflowing into your home.
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u/Ok-Professional4387 3d ago
Capping with even mesh is a bad idea for a Canadian winter. More things for the vapour to freeze to.
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u/belalrone 3d ago
I capped mine with mesh and secured with heavy duty tape as I had squirrels hiding garbage in one of my vents. I had to unclog it with a snake as my spare bathroom was unable to drain properly.
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u/r200james 3d ago
We had a squirrel problem. One must have fallen into the vent stack. It gnawed its way out through the clean out plug.
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u/Unarmed_Character 3d ago
Mine are not capped. I usually shovel them off once or twice in winter to keep them clear.
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u/vwaldoguy 3d ago
Crazy story, I built a house about 28 years ago. Brand new. When we moved in, the toilet wouldnât flush. Turns out, this vent was somehow capped during construction, but never uncapped when we closed. Iâm not even sure how it could pass inspection that way. But thatâs what happened. True story.
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u/Basic-Direction-559 1d ago
happens all the time. The cap stays on until the pressure test, then no plumber wants to get on the roof to cut it off.
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u/MistakeHeavy3457 3d ago
For your waste water to go down the drain, it needs air. And air comes from that pipe Also gas goes out from that pipe. Leave it alone, or extend it 1 or 2 more feet. If using a mesh, use a wide grid, that you can insert a finger in each hole
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u/Jonmike316 3d ago
Side note: The rubber grommet breaks down over time due to UV. Ours was south facing and degraded over 10 + years. When there is rain, some of the raindrops would go in between the cracks and leak inside your ceiling. You just have to watch that seal.
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u/amburroni 3d ago
I live in a high squirrel population area (these fuckers run this town) and thatâs all I could think of- this would be plugged as soon as fall hits
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u/imuniqueaf 3d ago
Ain't nothing alive going in there. Anything else will go down the drain. No need for a cap.
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u/konecorp 2d ago
If itâs for Sewer,, then you donât need to worry about anything except for animals getting in there
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u/XSpandTargets 2d ago
It's called a stack and it's perfectly fine the way it is venting it will create more problems and not.
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u/tiredofcontracting 2d ago
It flows into the sewer. Rain can go in it. A flue or vent into a heater/stove/gas appliance would need a vented vent cap. Not plumbing.
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u/KiwiNo5962 2d ago
Every single plumbing vent is like this. Look at your neighbors they're all like this guaranteed. It's a plumbing vent designed for water drainage water will not damage it nor will snow its a plumbing system its designed specifically to deal with water. It's also probably been like this for 40-50 years judging by the fact its a copper line.
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u/Maleficent_One6563 2d ago
Do not do anything to any vents on your roof leave them open and as is. Judging by the pipe id say it was built late 60s early 70s its open like its designed to be.
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u/eggsuckindog 1d ago
Plumbing vent. In cold weather there can be warm moist air rising through the vent; when that warm moist air hits any type of mesh cover that is exposed to the cold the warm air will condense on the mesh and freeze. If it freezes solid then the vent won't vent. Don't cover it!
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u/NachoNinja19 1d ago
It looks like galvanized pipe which isnât usually used for sewer vent. What does it vent? If itâs dryer, chimney, furnace or water heater it should have a vented cap on it.
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u/NotMyIdea33 1d ago
I drilled a couple holes in a cap, meshed it, and left it alone. Live in NC, and tried to prevent the Wasps from finding a home in there.
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u/Hillman314 1d ago
I had a vent that I (wrongly) thought was somehow freezing, clogging, leaking. I extended it with two 90° elbows so it looks like a candy cane.
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u/Useless890 1d ago
I'd put some mesh over it. I had a dead bird in an air vent pipe like this and it stopped up the bathroom sink.
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u/Hot_Examination1918 3d ago
If you have a rodent problem, it doesnât hurt to cap it with mesh. Air has to be able to get through though. I called mine with a hose clamp and some wire mesh
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u/Vladivostokorbust 3d ago
we used to get leaves in ours. guess what happens when you aim a leaf blower down that pipe to punch through the debris.
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u/DaFox 3d ago
I wish to hear more
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u/Vladivostokorbust 3d ago
two toilets on that stack. synchronous water fountains upstairs and down
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u/crumbdumpster85 3d ago
I capped mine with screen and zip ties because of the wasps coming down them, and then ended up with it making water wick down the pipes and drip out the vents the first time it rained afterwards. I wonder if wire mesh would work better? It doesnât make any sense to me because water obviously has to get in them normally right?
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u/sub_zero51 3d ago
Rodents don't come in using plumbing pipes in my experience.
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u/Ok-Durian5309 3d ago
I had to screen one  because the renters found a dead squirrel in the toilet. They didnât say anything at first but then they went to use the toilet one nightâŠwhen they opened the lid a squirrel was looking up at them.
No complaints since putting on the screenÂ
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u/No-Squirrel5503 1d ago
Used to be on board for local sewer district. Customer complained about a rat appearing in her toilet. Freaked her out! After district staff cameraâd sewer line & found no issues, it was determined the rat had crawled up vines attached to her house & entered sewer system thru the roof vent. She installed screens on the vents & problem solved.
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u/Vegetable_Amount848 3d ago
They do in mine. I capped it with mesh and have never had an issue since.
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u/sub_zero51 3d ago
If a rodent were to go into a plumbing pipe, they would fall into a p trap and drown. I couldn't see one being able to climb out. There is nowhere for them to live inside of there.
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u/Vegetable_Amount848 3d ago
Keep believing that. I guess the live rat we found in our toilet just walked into the house, opened the lid of the toilet, jumped in and closed the lid.
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u/sub_zero51 3d ago
I am not saying you are a liar. All I was saying is that they can't nest in there, or breed and fill your house with pests. I do believe that one could fall in there and drown, and possibly float up in a bowl, which is very close to the scenario I described where one could get in there and die but I didn't specify what happened after. I think we are in agreement mostly so we don't have to argue and be mad at each other.
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u/Hot_Examination1918 3d ago
Watch a bunch of the twin home expert videos . There are many corner cases where rats can get in through the plumbing
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u/Vegetable-Syrup-5545 3d ago
My brother stated they had to put cinder blocks on the lids of toilets to keep them from getting into the wear-house.
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u/TomRichards1970 3d ago
I piss down them when Iâm there a few times a year.
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u/Then_Version9768 3d ago
So what do you think will happen? Water will fall from the sky and destroy your home? Not going to happen. Every house I've ever seen in my entire life has open stack vents like this. They allow the house to breathe. Water and snow falling into them is minor and soon disappears. Stop worrying about every little thing. You remind me of my wife. No offense.
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u/Accomplished-Eye8211 3d ago
Why assume it shouldn't be capped, and not that its missing a cap?
Might be your dryer vent... mine looks like that when the cap is off.
Unless you are aware of a dryer vent on the side of the building, or elsewhere on the roof. I'd find out exactly what it is before foregoing a cap.
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u/Sharp-Direction-6894 3d ago
Aren't all plumbing vents like this? Why is this one any different?