Access to upstairs chimney breast required when installing fire?

Timeflies

The house I'm in the process of buying has a chimney, a plastered over chimney breast in the lounge/diner(no fire/fireplace/gap, just whatever you call the opposite of an alcove, where it sticks out into the room) and a narrower plastered protrusion into the main bedroom upstairs for the chimney.

The house needs a lot of work, so I probably don't have the time or money to put a fireplace in as one of the first jobs. However I would like to do so eventually.

I'd like to have built in wardrobes installed all along the wall in the bedroom where the chimney juts into the room.

My question is, would access be required to the chimney area in the bedroom when the fire is installed downstairs? I don't want to have to damage the fitted wardrobes to access the chimney/flue if this is necessary.

rustyboy21

You have what is called Chimney breasts in both your lounge and bedroom, just so you know. If you were able in the past to have a fire in your bedroom, then this would have been on its own separate flue. It would not use the downstairs flue.


Do you have a proper chimney stack and chimney pots on the roof? If so, you have a class 1 flue, which means you can go for most types of fires in the future. If you have a metal tube sticking out of your slates, or a raised ridge tile on the top of your roof, then you have a pre fabricated or precast flue. You can still have a gas fire fitted in future, but you wont be able to have solid fuel.


Don't worry about access to the bedroom chimney breast, as the flue for downstairs wont be used for upstairs. What I would suggest you do though, before you have the robes fitted, is get a gas safe registered/HETAS registered chimney sweep in and get them to check the downstairs flue thoroughly, so you know you wont have an issue later on. If they come back with everything is fine, then great, go ahead with your plans. If not, get them to sort any issue out first.