Making good a wall

[Martin Carroll]

I have just taking an old chimney breast down (two floors) and am left with an awkward job trying to make the wall flush for plastering.

This is in an old semi-detached property, on the party wall. The wall is mostly 9 inch but the flue part of the chimney was just 1 brick thick.

On the ground floor the brick is more to my side leaving a recess of about 1.5 inches. Upstairs it is about 2-3 inches.

The whole room has had the plaster removed to the brickwork and will have a render coat before the plaster skim.

I was thinking about trying to brick the gap up but this would be a fiddly and time consuming job.

Would covering it with expamet and rendering work? I guess the downstairs wouldn't be too bad, but upstairs 3+ inches of render would probably just peel away.

Also the flue is covered in soot, so I guess I would need to wire brush this off as render wouldn't stick very well.

Any other suggestions welcomed.

Cheers

Martin

[George]

Yeah! did you do a proper job of supporting whats left of the chimney above?

[Martin Carroll]

I have to support the top!

In article , George writes

[George]

Nah! just leave it, it'll come down by itself sometime.

[Martin Carroll]

Are you sure that will be OK?

In article , George writes

[Phil L]

nothing unusual there

yep - the brickies back then built chimney breasts in pairs, what you are finding is exactly like every chimney I have ever taken down

Any particular reason why it's being rendered? - drylining is cheaper, cleaner, neater and faster.

It would, and if you insist on rendering it, you may be as well filling the larger holes with drylining adhesive before rendering commences

Render doesn't stick well to many things and common bricks are a PITA given that there's little or no 'bond' to begin with. A stiff yard brush will get off the worst of the soot and wash down with a lot of water from top to bottom - this will reduce the suction as well as remove some of the deposits within the mortar - get the water running down the wall if at all possible to achieve best results - then, if you are rendering it, start at the top and use a 1:1 PVA solution over the whole of the sooted parts, then apply a thin paste of drylining adhesive mixed with the PVA solution, brush it on and allow to set before rendering.

If you dryline the area, you still need to brush and wash down the affected parts, along with the application of PVA but you don't need to apply the thin base of DL adhesive as the boards will be stuck directly to the wall with it.

[George]

If I cut your legs off at the knee do you reckon you'd fall over?

You're either stupid or taking the mick?

[Phil L]

George is joking.

I'm assuming you have suitably supported the chimney on the roof?

You will need to get steel gallows made and use a length of thick angle iron across them, along with support for midfeathers if required

[Martin Carroll]

Sorry George, maybe some people would be tempted to leave the stack hanging, but I am not one of them.

Steel is in place holding up the stack.

Cheers

Martin

In article , George writes

[Martin Carroll]

I don't like dry lining. The project is a renovation for resale and personally I think dry-lining is a shoddy way of working.

Cheers

Martin

[Phil L]

It makes a better finish too, render cracks and if your house isn't sold within a few months, it will need further attention.

As for DL being 'shoddy' - it's now the norm and is insisted upon by most BCO's because of it's insulation properties.

It stays dry too and doesn't track the cold across from exterior walls.

And it has soundproofing properties.

So other than: Quicker Cheaper Neater Cleaner Soundproofing Insulating

I agree, DL isn't as good as the too hard, susceptible to cracking off in sheets, expensive, laborious, dirty, cold and often damp attracting render

[Martin Carroll]

So you don't like rendering then?

Martin

[geoff]

That's a rather optimistic assumption ...

[Phil L]

I have no preference WRT customers who wish to pay, however if it were my own home, I would dryline everything. I do tell customers who ask for render that it is inferior *and* expensive and very few of them choose to have it....this is compared to decades ago when labour was cheap and almost everything was rendered, but even then it was still crap - it sets way too hard and cracks up quicker than Amy Winehouse in a crack factory.

YMMV