How to Solve a Windowless Room

What if your room is surrounded by walls that cannot provide a window? With the lack of space almost everywhere, townhouses are often faced with the problem of a windowless room, especially a unit sandwiched between units. Some in the real estate business are businessmen, not real architectural designers, so they don't bother thinking about how to solve a windowless room. They just want to make the whole thing look beautiful to make it sellable.

And mind you, minor design elements delightful to the eyes can overwhelm a buyer and make him focus on the beauty than the functionality and make that as the basis of purchasing a house. Things like an impressive staircase, ballusters, lamps, door design, tiles, windows, front porch, garden and other less consequential details can make you forget what really counts in a comfortable dwelling. 

Here are some things you should really check out in a house:

1. Movement flow and adjacency of related rooms.
2. Window openings in rooms.
3. How many entrance and exit doors (security considerations).
4. Leaking roofs and firewalls.
5. Service door from the kitchen.
6. How efficient is the floor drain in the bathroom.
7. Clogged pipes.
8. Electrical wirings.
9. Flooding on rainy seasons.
10. Peaceful neighborhood.

Photo by Christopher Jolly on Unsplash.

A windowless room happens when all sides of a room is adjacent to another room or a dead end. It has no side facing an open area. What most developers do is put air-conditioning. When a brownout happens, or when the air conditioning unit breaks down, all hell breaks loose. That's the only time the owner realizes the flaw of the room, and it's too late to complain about it. What do we do?

For rooms already there, the best thing to do is install an exhaust fan or centrifugal fan or box fan or blowers (or whatever the industry calls it), sucking air from another room that has an ample window and air supply (not the singer band). Blowers are better than electric fans. During a brownout, make sure the blower is operational by other means other than electricity. Power it with a generator or car battery or stored solar power. That's one way how to solve a windowless room.

If you don't like blowers, how about converting that room into a storage area and then having another room constructed elsewhere that faces an open area? In Quezon City, I saw someone convert his garage into a room and park his car on the sidewalk just outside their house. The problem is if the subdivision management suddenly decides to ban parked vehicles in the streets at night.

The most practical solution is to devide the upper floor into two so that each room gets a side that can open to open area. The room facing the street can have the front open area and the room at the back can use the open area in the backyard as its window clearance. But the problem complicates if the rear side is a firewall and so are the its sides, so that only the front room gets free ventilation. This is solved by airconditioning, which as mentioned above, becomes a pain in the neck during brownouts. 

If the front of the property facing the street is wide enough to house two rooms on the upper floors, it will be an easy thing to divide the area into two with each unit or room upstairs getting a share of the street-side open area. They both get good front windows that open to the open area in front. But here's another problem--air circulation.

Any room relying on free, natural airflow needs at least two windows for air circulation to penetrate the room. And the window openings should be placed on different walls of the room, not on the same wall, for free air to get through and properly ventilate the room. If the windows are on the same wall, air won't be able to get through and simply backflow as soon as it hits a few inches beyond the windows. Occupants will not feel sufficient airflow inside the room. 

If a windowless room faces a dead end, like the property line, you may opt to cut back a little from your room (something like 2 square meters from the firewall or property line ) just to provide space for an opening. Then you may place a window or two there. This works for both existing windowless rooms and rooms just about to be constructed. It's going to cost a little bit more and compromise the size of the room, but it's definitely a better way on how to solve a windowless room.

Better yet, if you're still on planning stage and a windowless room seems inevitable, assign that room another function (like a storage or music room) and then construct your bedroom, in lieu of it, on a new or upper floor. A better HOUSEpinoy tip. It's a little added expense, but you'd have better results than dealing with a windowless bedroom or converting your garage into your bedroom and kicking out your car into the streets.