Chimney support

CarefulBill

Hallo,

The previous owners of our house removed the chimney breast from the living room ground floor and first floor bedroom sleaving stack inadequately supported.

We sought building control regularisation and instructed a structural engineer.

S.E. feel we need to build a 70cm sqaure pillar in the main bedroom and run a girder over to the underside of the chimney including
S.E's builder mates Quote ca £2.5k,

That's ok but we're more worried about the recarpeting, plastering papering, painting, rewiring, and smaller bedroom!

Every builder we've had round to look / quote
(other than the friends of the struc engineer)
has told us the chimney is tiny and we only need a gallows or RSJ, - one even called the council inspector who also agreed.

However the council can only permit work with Stuctural engineers report, so do we now get another structural engineer in for a 2nd opinion?

The builders all volunteered the same opinion, quite insistently.
The smaller job curiously earns them less money leading me to suspect they may be right?

We want the regularisation certificate, and peace of mind it won't fall down, so we're not trying to wriggle out of spending the extra money, - just don't want to remodel the house unnecessarily, particularly if the S.E. is drumming up work for his allied builders.

Add advice appreciated.

It can't be any more conflicting than that which we've had

keystone

Ask the builders to quote for the removal of the offending brickwork and make good the roof. Probably similar cost to fitting gallows brackets. Problem gone away.

Cheers

Oh and I think builders are probably correct too. SE is either talking the job up or throwing a large lump of CYA factor at it.

CarefulBill

Chimney's on shared flue of party wall (semi detatched) so might be tricky but I'll look into it.

Not sure anybody's checked the situation next door actually, everybody seems to be assuming that they have a full top to ground chimney breast.

beaker141

If you built the 70cm sq pillar (thats massive!) in the bedroom - what would it be built off - I'm assuming when it originally existed it was built off the chimney in the downstairs room and then down to solid ground.

I think a gallows bracket in the loft is called for to support whats left of the chimney stack. (Note in officialdom a party wall act notice is needed for a gallows bracket - in case it predjudices next door doing the same in future - I think)

depending on what the loft layout is and structural walls - could you run a steel girder accross anywhere to support the chimney.