Opening/Raising chimney breast to house cooker?

paulalde

Afternoon,

I'm wondering if anyone has an idea of what timeframe and price I might expect from a builder to open a chimney breast and fit a higher lintel in order to house a 900mm range cooker?

I wouldn't require any plastering, tiling, or pipe/electrical relocation at this point. Just the brickwork left in a tidy acceptable state for a finish at a later date when the kitchen is fitted.

Thanks in advance

Paul

FreeBear

That all depends on how much work is involved. How high does the lintel need to go ?
Where does the gather start ?
How much rubble is in there already ?

paulalde

Hi FreeBear thanks for the response, good questions.

My honest answer would be I'm not sure as the opening is currently enclosed behind the current cast iron fireplace and the wall skimmed.

It's a tricky one as I'd happily open it myself and tip the rubble leaving the constructional brick untouched (I did this myself in the front room in preparation for the log burner).

I guess I'm more intrigued as to how much the lintel raising of say 1m would roughly be?

I'd hate to pull it all out just to find out the job is way more than I anticipated. I'm attached to the fireplace but the small kitchen is in need of more useable space.

Thanks again for the response.

FreeBear

I needed to put a new lintel in when I did my fireplace - Also raised it a fair bit so that I could get the wood burner off the floor. I was fortunate that the gather started at the same level as the new lintel so it was quite easy to install. The original brick arch was in the process of collapsing, so I didn't really have much choice...

One thing I learnt from the exercise is the gather is structural - If you go pulling out the bottom courses, additional support must be put in else there is a real risk that the whole chimney could collapse.