Removing Chimney breast

[freepo]

Wondering about a house I am thinking of buying. It has chimney breasts which take up room space downstairs aswell as upstairs in bedrooms. If I could remove the chimney breasts it would increase space.

On the roof the chimney has already been removed. in the Attic the chimney curves down splits into two sections like in the shape of a gothic arch, this then goes down through the house.

Would party-wall permission be needed? How about if I'm a quiet worker...no-one need know! I'm very certain next door does not share this chimney, because their stairs would be along this wall just as the stairs in this house are also along the other wall - with no fireplaces.

Is it simply a question of starting at the top in the attic, and removing it brick by brick? Then clean & point what is inside the chimney, then render and patch up the ceilings.

Cheers

[freepo]

I just realised, the ridge board would probably cause problems, probably when they removed the chimney stack they added a piece of ridge board which is currently sitting atop the chimney bricks, so removing them would probably be a bad idea without first making sure the ridge board is properly supported.

[George]

But in reality how much space would you really gain after an expensive and labourous job?

2ft x 5ft or 6ft

[freepo]

1ft x 6 - 9ft in 4 rooms (including current alcoves which are not used in the bedrooms i.e. wasted space) Not that expensive to do and would be well worth it.

[Adrian Simpson]

In article , freepo writes

If on a party wall, yes it would. You might be a quite worker, but you don't know what is on the other side of the wall that might rely on the chimney breast for support, if that all goes out of balance, then things might get rather noisy and very messy in a very short space of time.

It would also be a good idea to talk to the local building control officer, they may or may not need to be involved depending on just what needs to be done.

Since you appear to be posting via google groups (if you can, get yourself a decent news reader and feed instead), have a rummage around in the archive for this group, this subject comes up on a regular basis.

Adrian