Council removed chimney breast?

hansen_mork

Hi all,

I own and live in a 1930s ex council house that was bought out in the 80s (not by me).

Part of the downstairs chimney breast has been removed but previous owners have said that this was not done by them.

Ive look on rightmove at other similar houses on the same road and around the area and they all have the same part of the breast removed. It seems unlikely that everybody had exactly the same idea.
Is there a way to find out if the council carried out the changes to the local council housing pre 1980s? It would explain the uniform layout.

Thanks

theGrinch

I would think the quickest way is speak to the neighbours along the street. someone will recall it.

hansenmork

theGrinch wrote: »

I would think the quickest way is speak to the neighbours along the street. someone will recall it.

Thanks for the quick reply. If someone does recall. Would the council have records of this if i called?

Im selling my house and im trying to pre-empt any possible queries by getting relevant evidence.

Being young and naive at the time, i never looked into this when buying.

lemon26

The council may have the documents, although it may take a bit of digging as they would (probably) have been archived if the work wasn't done in the last few years.

I needed some documents for work carried out by my council on my old house before I bought so I contacted their building standards department who couldn't have been more helpful.

£25 later they'd taken all the documents I required from a microfiche and printed and delivered them. I'll probably help them to help you if you could give them a rough idea of when the work was carried out.

SailorSam

hansen_mork wrote: »

It seems unlikely that everybody had exactly the same idea.
Thanks

I think it's more unlikely that the Council would have done it. Councils are notorious for not doing any repairs that are really needed.
It's more likely that after residents had bought their Council house if it was only a small room with an unused chimney, once one had it done and their neighbours saw how much extra room they had, everyone would do the same job.

hansenmork

SailorSam wrote: »

I think it's more unlikely that the Council would have done it. Councils are notorious for not doing any repairs that are really needed.
It's more likely that after residents had bought their Council house if it was only a small room with an unused chimney, once one had it done and their neighbours saw how much extra room they had, everyone would do the same job.

I see what you are saying but i am talking about at least 10 different house on the same long road and other surrounding roads with identical type houses.

In fact every house that has come on rm over the last few years on my road has exactlt the same part of the chimney removed. I have yet to see a house without this same layout.

princeofpounds

which part has been removed, specifically?

they may not have wanted tenants to light fires any more (perhaps after the area was declared smokeless), or they may have been removing an item of equipment like a back boiler.

hansenmork

well the loft part is in tact and about a metre in width which carries on into the first floor bedroom.


However on the ground floor there is a breast but not where you would expect it to follow down.


On the ground floor there is a larger breast that ends about a 3rd of a metre into where the breast should follow down.


Think of two identical boxes stack with the one on top placed in the middle of the one below


................|.......|
_______|____|