Hi there, We have birds that are nesting in our stove exhaust vent. We just discovered that there is a small hole in the outside vent cover. If you stand near the stove, you can hear birds chirping. This has been going on at least a week. They are most likely sparrows. Do you think they will try to come into our house through this vent? What should we do? We'd like to seal up the outside vent cover hole, but don't want to trap the birds in our house :) Please advise.

They should go out the vent towards the sunlight. But if they end up in the house, try to trap them in one room and open the windows/ exterior door. Then shoo them outside. The baby birds will only need about two weeks to leave the nest. Once you no longer hear the chirping for a couple of days, clean the nesting material out the stove pipe and patch the hole on the vent. You may need to hire someone to do that if you can't access the pipe/vent yourself.

We have the same situation and have been hearing chirps and movement in there for weeks. I fear the exhaust fan, which sometimes goes on automatically, will harm or kill them. How do we know when the babies have fledged? And then is it okay to clear out the nest, or will they all die? There aren't a lot of nesting sites around, so it feels kind of mean. But it's also unsettling to hear them just above our simmering dinner. I have not seen them so don't know what they are; the neighbor says sparrows. Thank you.

We have the same situation and have been hearing chirps and movement in there for weeks. I fear the exhaust fan, which sometimes goes on automatically, will harm or kill them. How do we know when the babies have fledged? And then is it okay to clear out the nest, or will they all die? There aren't a lot of nesting sites around, so it feels kind of mean. But it's also unsettling to hear them just above our simmering dinner. I have not seen them so don't know what they are; the neighbor says sparrows. Thank you.