Shafts in a growing city
Guntur’s skyline has changed in the last decade. Where most families once lived in independent houses, many now live in apartment buildings of five to ten floors, especially north of the city towards the capital region. Almost every one of these buildings has a plumbing shaft running between flats, open to the sky at the top. Pigeons treat it like a cliff: sheltered, shaded and almost never disturbed.
Signs your shaft has been taken over:
- a steady cooing from behind the bathroom wall at first light
- white streaks running down the outside of the ventilator
- an exhaust fan that slows down or stops
- a sour smell that comes back every time the weather turns humid
Where the net goes
There are only two sensible places for it.
Over the shaft opening on the roof. A single net, stretched across the top, closes the shaft for every family. Any open sides lower down are closed at the same time. Because it affects everyone, the owners decide it together.
Over your own opening. If the building can’t agree, we close just your ventilator or the part of the shaft beside your flat. It protects you, but birds will still nest further down.
What it’s made of
A UV-stabilised bird net with a 50 mm mesh, tied to a tensioned border on stainless-steel hooks. Shafts stay damp around the pipes, which is why plain iron is never used. Near the pipes we fit a panel that unzips or unhooks for the plumber.
Older homes with shared gaps
In the older parts of the city, such as Old Guntur and the lines of Arundelpet, houses stand wall to wall with a narrow gap between them that lets light into bathrooms and stairs. Pigeons crowd into these gaps. If both neighbours agree, one net across the top solves it for both houses.
Our steps
We look at the shaft from your window and from the roof, decide how to reach the fixing points safely, clear nests where the hooks will go, fix the hooks, tension the border, lace the net, seal it neatly around pipes and finish with the access panel.
Afterwards
The only thing that undoes a shaft net is an access panel left open after a repair. Ask the plumber to close it. Because the net sits in shade, it typically lasts well beyond a balcony net.
Before we come
Photos of the shaft from inside and from the roof help us plan.
Want more detail? See duct area safety nets and the article on why apartment duct areas need nets.
