Electrics and gas
A boiler is in a bedroom cupboard and the surveyor did not test the ventilation of that cupboard. What combustion-air question remains open?
The combustion-air question that remains open is whether the bedroom cupboard can supply and ventilate the boiler safely. The surveyor did not test the ventilation of that cupboard. A boiler in a sleeping room's cupboard raises that question because the appliance takes air and gives up exhaust in a tight space next to where people sleep. The home survey has not been a gas safety inspection. It has not measured vents, proved a flue, or calculated air supply. The cupboard was seen. Its ventilation was not tested. That is the open question.
Last reviewed 24 October 2026. Written for buyers in England and Wales unless this answer says otherwise. No named surveyor has signed this page. It is general guidance, not a report on your house, and not legal advice.
What is the fuller explanation?
Cupboard boilers are easy to describe and easy to over-read. You can see the case, the door, and whether a grille exists. You cannot, by looking, know that the grille is enough, that it is clear, or that the room and the cupboard together feed the burner properly. The survey should record the location and the fact the ventilation was not tested. Gas Safe records, if they existed, were a different inspection and were not created by this visit.
Ask a Gas Safe registered engineer to consider a boiler in a bedroom cupboard, including the air supply and the flue, and give them no pretence that the survey already measured it. Ask the solicitor for any gas record that mentions this cupboard. Until that engineer reports, keep the question open in anything you tell a lender. The survey's last word on it is the limitation: ventilation not tested, combustion air not established.
What should you ask your surveyor?
- Did you see the boiler in the bedroom cupboard and explicitly not test its ventilation?
- What grille or vent, if any, did you see without measuring it?
- Which combustion-air question are you leaving open?
What are the typical next steps?
- Keep the cupboard ventilation as untested.
- Do not treat the boiler's location as a gas-safety pass.
- Ask a Gas Safe registered engineer about combustion air for this cupboard.
Costs vary with the building and with who you instruct. Where this page does not cite a published figure, ask the surveyor, a relevant specialist, or your solicitor for a written quote. Do not treat a forum average as the price.
Also asked about this
If the cupboard door is louvred, has the air question closed?
No. Louvres show an intention to let air through. They were not tested, and the survey has not established that combustion air is adequate. The question stays open. The louvres were not measured and the combustion-air question still stays open.
Does a carbon-monoxide alarm in the bedroom measure the supply air?
No. An alarm is not a test of combustion air or of the cupboard ventilation. The surveyor did not carry out that test, and the alarm does not replace it. Sleeping next to it does not test the air supply.