Unsupported chimney breast!

Friends are looking at buying a house. Nice old 1890ish terrace, two floors and a full-size cellar.

Unfortunately some idiot has previously removed the chimney breast from the cellar level, leaving the chimney above unsupported! They've removed the hearth slab and mantel, so the weight isn't too bad, and they've filled the gap with matching floorboards (stripped floors). However there's a 4' x 1' chimney breast hanging there with nowt beneath. If you look up from below, you can see right up the flue and practically out of the top.

Any suggestions on fixes?

Reply to
Andy Dingley
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Sorry, but all I can think of right now is the tellytubbies shouting "run away !!!!"

Can they get the current owner to get a full structural survey and foot the cost of any remedial work required ?

I wonder when the "house packs" become a legal requirement for sellers...

Reply to
Colin Wilson

In message , Colin Wilson writes

Wont make much difference... The new Home Inspectors will not be trained to the levels of Chartered Surveyors, and the report will almost certainly not be acceptable to lenders.

Reply to
Richard Faulkner

But a hellova weight of bricks above!

I'm sure someone will tell us what the required mechanism is, but all I've got holding up my chimney in similar circumstances is a couple of flat steel strips inserted horizontally into the remaining brickwork. If the one you're looking at is the same they may simply be hidden by the floorboards.

Chris

Reply to
chris_doran

I'm wondering how you/they know its unsupported. Normally you'd have to rip out some ceiling or floorboards to even get to look at whats going on. Since the floorboards are there, is the house in such a state that the necessary ceiling is missing? If not, the surveyor might have misidentified the idiot.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

What you do is go down the cellar and look at where the hearth was. When you so it isn't that's when you know.

(Unless the idiots stripped out the floor and inserted lots and lots of expensive ironmongery so they could have more room in the cellar.)

I would imagine that after having tons and tons of masonry cleing to the gable wall there will be a fair bit of distortion. If you can't see it and there are no cracks in it then it might be possible to repair it for 10 or 15 thousand. (To take down the stack. I don't know if putting the base back will be safe enough.)

When it collapses it will drop instantly and give little or no warning, so the house will be uninhabitable untill all the chimney is removed or reinstated.

I wouldn't bother. And it aught to be illegal to pass on dangerous property like that whether or not the customer has been advised of it.

Reply to
Weatherlawyer

It shouldn't cost 10k to remove a stack!! (Unless the house is huge with more than 2 stacks. Ive removed a single stack in a kitchen for less than 2k.

Reply to
justcalledfubar

snipped-for-privacy@ntlworld.com wrote:.

It can be done for nothing if you do it yourself. But for a profesional job it could well be a silly figure. It depends on the powers that be insisting who does what.

A large firm will charge 3 or 4 times the labour cost. I was only guessing at a silly and objectionable price. Not that I'd turn it down.

Reply to
Weatherlawyer

IOW since its a cellar there will be no ceiling.

Why on earth would someone remove only the cellar level of a stack?

NT

Reply to
meow2222

Unfortunately some idiot has previously removed the chimney breast from

the cellar level, leaving the chimney above unsupported! They've removed the hearth slab and mantel, so the weight isn't too bad, and they've filled the gap with matching floorboards (stripped floors). However there's a 4' x 1' chimney breast hanging there with nowt beneath. If you look up from below, you can see right up the flue and practically out of the top.

I often wonder at the hysteria that people get into when faced with these problems. Assuming that the chimney is 4' wide and projects about

1'. Is it acually 1' or more probably10" single brick (9" plus plaster) or 14" brick and a half. The chimney will be built out of the existing flank wall so is corbelled back into the existing wall. I accept that the corbelling is too severe and it should be a max of 25% of the wall from which it protrudes. If it is a solid 9" wall then it could corbel out to 11" then 13"and so on until it sufficiently supports the stack. Some people will scoff but I have seen countless chimney stacks arch over within the loft space and two breasts( I know what i mean!) merge to the base of the chimney stack where it protrudes from the roof. regards Legin
Reply to
legin

Well, there you have it, yer pays yer muni an yer takes yer choises.

Personally I'd steer clear or get a profitable price reduction. What would really ice the cake is to find it has been listed.

Then you'd bend over backwards listing problems with a listing listed building.

Reply to
Weatherlawyer

The seller had better hope the building isnt listing then.

NT

Reply to
meow2222

I took the chimney breast out from the kitchen > back bedroom of this

1897 end-of-terrace place and finally took the (small) stack down and the remaining breast when the roof was refurbed (slates stripped, lined, replaced).

I started by supporting the front face with an acro but soon found that in spite of the mortar being mainly sand it was fairly well keyed into the wall and wasn't 'falling' anywhere.

As most of the bricks were removed (by hand) intact I used them to refill the 4 1/2" void ;-)

We still have the other two chimney breasts that like Nigels merge in the loft to a common (and shared with next door) stack. We still need these as we don't have central heating but just two wall mounted gas fires downstairs (that are rarely on). Probably just as well the way gas prices are going! ;-(

All the best ..

T i m

Reply to
T i m

How is your house heated? Or isn't it?

Mary

Reply to
Mary Fisher

I should doubt very much that any chimney lacks at least a key at every

3rd course or so.

Some stacks can weigh a ton in a few feet as a brick is about 2 or 3 lbs of dried clay. They have no sheer resistance. What you do with a column of bricks 20 or 30 feet high is your business.

But if you undermined it and invited me around, it would be for a fight. What you were relying on was the integrity of the roof to resist the gable holding the chimney up. A small amount of movement would have taken place after every storm. And not gone back.

I don't understand how you could be such a damned fool and not realise from the OP in this thread on, that there must have been some sort of frictional type device holding up the chimneys discussed here.

What did you think was holding them up? Bird shit and wall paper paste.?

Reply to
Weatherlawyer

Removing chimney breasts is notifiable work under Building Regulations ie a building regs application should have been made. Best policy would be to enquire with your local Building Control about making a retrospective building regs application. The local building conrol surveyor will then visit and advise you You either need to have steel beam inserted or gallows brackets (not all Councils allow them) This type of work will be spotted when you come to sell by the Home Inspector (home condition reports required from June 2007)so its best sorted out now

Reply to
surveyor

Removing chimney breasts is notifiable work under Building Regulations ie a building regs application should have been made. Best policy would be to enquire with your local Building Control about making a retrospective building regs application. The local building conrol surveyor will then visit and advise you You either need to have steel beam inserted or gallows brackets (not all Councils allow them) This type of work will be spotted when you come to sell by the Home Inspector (home condition reports required from June 2007)so its best sorted out now

Reply to
surveyor

Removing chimney breasts is notifiable work under Building Regulations ie a building regs application should have been made. Best policy would be to enquire with your local Building Control about making a retrospective building regs application. The local building conrol surveyor will then visit and advise you You either need to have steel beam inserted or gallows brackets (not all Councils allow them) This type of work will be spotted when you come to sell by the Home Inspector (home condition reports required from June 2007)so its best sorted out now

Reply to
surveyor

Will the home condition reports have to be made in triplicate?

Mary

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Reply to
Mary Fisher

This was keyed every other course from memory ..

Possibly, but wouldn't the fact that the mortar was fairly soft allow all the keys to take their share of the load, so the mass that was free to fall would only be the centre course at the front (and gradually coballing themselves back to the sides (and how infact I took it down as it was supported by an acro at the ground fooor fireplace).

I gently knocked at least 50% out with a 2lb hammer, knocked off the mortar and stacked them neatly for reuse?

Well you wouldn't have been offered a cuppa if you were to frigntened to help.

Eh? The chimney was standing 50% on the existing flank wall and the side cheeks where there were keyd into the flank wall down to the first floor (and from there to the ground floor to start with).

Possibly .. this place has been squirming about for the last 100+ years ..?

Ermm, not sure (again) what you are getting at here .. probably leagal jargon .. ;-)

I didn't 'think' what was holding them I knew, good brick bonds and sandy lime mortar (and an acro while I was *actually* taking it down, just in case ...)?

And that was 30 years ago now ..

What was potentially dangerous though was the builder that set the joists against (rather than on with possibly a small birds mouth) the wall plate on the new 'end wall' when he built the extension to the rear addition. Fine if it was a pitched roof. Luckily he (finally) agreed and did it properly ..

All the best ..

T i m

Reply to
T i m

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