my house has 2 chimney columns one in the front room one in the living room, both go upstairs and i assume through the loft to the chimneys on the roof. Both have gas fires which are no longer used due to central heating.
Is it a big job having chimneys removed, and how much would be reasonable price to pay to have the job done?.
Thanks for any advice.
you mean the chimney breast? hows santa gonna get in if you remove it?
Personally I think you will be removing the character of the room if you do get it done.
-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite
Lol, I can see where youre coming from, however the rooms are tiny to start with, and I would love to have flat walls!.
Are you in a victorian type property with a hallway? If so demolish the wall between hallway and living room to gain the extra space, much easier and that wall is normally a non supporting wall.
This is what I did with mine and put arched plaster boarded walls in the alcoves either side of the chimney breast.
-- Sir Benjamin Middlethwaite
| my house has 2 chimney columns one in the front room one in the living = room,=20 | both go upstairs and i assume through the loft to the chimneys on the = roof.=20 | Both have gas fires which are no longer used due to central heating. |=20 | Is it a big job having chimneys removed, and how much would be = reasonable=20 | price to pay to have the job done?.
The ends of the floor joists are supported by the chimney breast, and/or the chimney in the bedrooms. You have to support the joists while you remove the brick/stone work, then re-support them. This is a *big* job, whether DIY or professional.
--=20 Dave Fawthrop Sick of Premium SMS scams, SMS marketing, Direct marketing phone calls, Silent phone calls?=20 Register with
It would probably be cheaper to move. Chimney stacks are big and heavy, so you need either to remove the whole stack, from ground floor to chimney pot, or, if you simply take out the chimney breasts in the rooms, you need to provide alternative support to the top of the stack. The former will almost certainly need planning permission, the latter will need to be designed by a structural engineer and both will need building control approval. As already noted, a chimney stack usually provides structural support to the floors.
Colin Bignell
Is it a semi/terraced? Is the chimney shared with next door?
If so, there are two chimney designs. Only one would be removable without also removing your neighbour's
Design 1:
-----+ | +----- +---+ +
This has you and your neighbour's flue in line. This provides an elegant wide and shallow chimney breast. However, your neighbour's flue comes your side of the wall, so you can't remove that without their permission.
Design 2: + + | |
-----+---+----- | | + +
This has the advantage of having a party wall running through, so you can remove your flues without affecting your neighbour. It leads to a deeper, but narrower chimney breast. Obviously, they are rarely as narrow as shown in the diagram, particularly as there are normally two flues per side (one per storey), rather than the one illustrated.
You can get an indication of which design you have by looking for clues. Obviously the width and depth of the chimney breast is one clue. Another (but is by no means infallible) is the layout of the chimney pots. With a two storey house (2 flues per side), Design 1 would have 4 pots in a line, whilst Design 2 would have 4 pots in a square pattern.
If possible, there is a fair amount of structural work involved. The joists need alternative support and the chimney need supporting above the loft floor. You can also remove the chimney completely even higher, but this needs roofing work, so would likely be more expensive and have a greater visual impact on the property. The work will need designing by a structural engineer.
Christian.
When a neighbour was taking down a stack, he was told he only needed BCO approval if some part of the stack was being retained above the part being removed. So a complete removal of his stack did not need BCO approval. That was around 1990, IIRC.
In my house, the floor joists seem to go to some extraordinary lengths to avoid being supported by the chimney stacks. I thought this was to reduce the chance of setting fire to the joist ends.
I don't think you've been able to embed joist ends into a chimney breast for a very long time, certainly much more than half a century.
Chimneys are often used for buttressing walls. Therefore they are a structural element, and come under the scrutiny of BCO.
I've never lived in a house that young. However, what I have seen and was thinking about is joists supported by the floor slab in front of the fireplace, which usually takes its support from the stack.
Exactly. You would need to be able to show that they were not a structural element to avoid the need for Building Control Approval.
Colin Bignell
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