Is is likely that a solid 9" brick wall would have a thickness of only
1 brick on the oustide wall behind a chimney breast ? Approx 1930 house. I should be able to see by looking at the bond on the outside, but cannot get to look at this yet. I'm thinking that if so, a lot of work would be involved to remove the breast. Cheers, Simon.|Is is likely that a solid 9" brick wall would have a thickness of only |1 brick on the oustide wall behind a chimney breast ? Approx 1930 |house. I should be able to see by looking at the bond on the outside, |but cannot get to look at this yet.
Take a long masonry drill, and see how far it goes before it hits a void more than 2 inches wide.
|I'm thinking that if so, a lot of work would be involved to remove the |breast.
There is a **LOT** of work involved in removing a chimney breast. Not least supporting the upper floor while the work is in progress, and supporting it after the work is done. May be cheaper to move house :-(
Nah. I'm just moving in ! I'll be doing it meself and I'll be removing the whole stack and chimney. I guess "missing bricks" would only be a channel the size of the actual flue, so bonding to the rest of the wall may not be that much of an issue. Simon.
party wall act ? structural engineers report ? competency ?
guess again but it you do decide to bash on in, don't forget the before and after photos.
By my experience I would say there is almost no possibility of the back wall only being one brick thick, the exteriror wall will be 9 inch straight along the back of the chimney, although don't expect it to be flush with both side walls, brickies in those days used to throw those bricks into place (given that no one would ever see them) and some of them will be an inch prouder than their neighbours!
Not a lot, providing you don't start at the bottom. :-p
Not a party wall. Well, I would certainly need a struct report for the BCO, yes. Completency - that's tested when it goes wrong ! The guy who removed a chimney breast on his refurb 2 doors away went mad with an SDS removing a whole stack. He invited me in. I have to say, I would have been more cautious than him, but he had done it before. I think removing the whole lot is safer then supporting the upper part. His house did not fall down.
Certainly I will have photos for you all. Simon.
But it's not just about supporting the upper part - it's quite likely, for example, that there are floor/ceiling joists keyed into the chimney breast, so it's entirely possible to bring the lot down if you don't know what you're doing...
David
Mine are all 1 brick thick at the backs of the fireplaces, and all the way up the flues. (1909)
On 20 Mar 2006 07:11:48 -0800, a particular chimpanzee named sm snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com randomly hit the keyboard and produced:
Chimney breasts (and other structural bits) don't necessarily fall down straight away. I remember being called to a house where a chimney stack had fallen through the first floor ceiling and was strewn all over a young couple's double bed and their baby's cot (luckily both empty at the time). The breast had been removed months if not years earlier. All it takes is a bit of wind or a heavy snowfall to turn something self-supporting to something not.
The message from Hugo Nebula contains these words:
I once did some work in the Ladbrokes branch next to Charing X Hospital in Hammermith. When I lifted the ceiling tiles to run cables I found a dangling chineybreast - no support at all, just hanging. Two or three bricks had fallen off and were on top of the tiles and grid. Scary. I left it fenced off with chairs, left a note for the manager (I was in on a Sunday) and rang their estates office first thing on Monday. Dunno what came of it though.
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