Fireplace Removal

KatemMcKie

Hi, I'm buying a house with a massive gas fireplace in the lounge that we want to knock down.

There doesn't appear to be a chimney and isn't integral to the building's structure.

How much roughly would it cost to get the gas capped, the fireplace removed and re-plastered?

I have a picture I'll attached separately.

Any advice would be much appreciated - thanks!

Cakeguts

What do you mean by gas fireplace? Do you mean a gas fire that sticks out from the wall?

ReadingTim

It costs in pounds what the length of this bit of garden twine is, in milimeters. Or in other words, how long is a piece of string?

More seriously, get two or three quotes from local tradesmen - prices in one part of the country might not apply where you are. And they'll be doing the work, not a bunch of randoms off the internet.

KatemMcKie

Sorry - I was a bit vague! It's a gas fireplace that does stick out from the wall. The base frame around it is floor to ceiling. From the floor to half the height of the room, the base is seemingly brick the rest of the base to the ceiling is just normal wall like the rest of the room (I haven't yet checked if it's hollow), it comes out about two feet from the wall and is about 4ft 5in wide - so pretty big.

I have a picture, but being a new user I can't post it on this thread just yet, but I'll try to later on.

We want to knock the fireplace out (some of which we're happy to do ourselves), cap the gas and re-plaster the wall so it's flat - this will free up considerable floor space.

Any thoughts would be really helpful!

G_M

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"some of which you'll DIY".

How much? How can we cost a job without knowing what the job is?

Send in a gas engineer and make sure you tell him exactly what you want him to do. He'll give a price.

KatemMcKie

I Didn't realise I was causing such confusion.

I don't know if we could knock the brick element out ourselves, I wanted advice on whether or not we'd need a builder to remove the fireplace rather than us if it was a safety risk, but without a picture I guess no-one can.

We'd definitely need a gas engineer to take a look and would need to hire a plasterer to re-plaster that part of the wall flat in line with the rest of the wall.

This would be so much easier if I could post a picture!

I ask about pricing here as I've seen other posts give good advice on this subject matter, only the fireplaces were much smaller - and we haven't moved in yet so can't get a quote.

I'm trying to gauge whether or not we can budget for it to be done straight after the move or whether we'll have to wait a while.

Appreciate I can't give all the details, but any indications would help me a lot.

ReadingTim

Anywhere between one hundred and one hundred thousand pounds. Or maybe more.

AndyTails

We had a "normal" size (say 650mm tall by 350mm wide) gas fire removed by a local gas man. Not 100% sure what it cost as we got him to do a lot of other work too, but fairly sure it was in the order of £100. The price of capping a gas pipe isn't going to depend on the size of the gas appliance anyway.


The fireplace we removed ourselves. The internal wall (it's a timber framed house with external brickwork) we re-plasterboarded ourselves. The hole in the external brick wall I filled myself. All simple and cheap when it's DIY.

KatemMcKie

AndyTails wrote: »

We had a "normal" size (say 650mm tall by 350mm wide) gas fire removed by a local gas man. Not 100% sure what it cost as we got him to do a lot of other work too, but fairly sure it was in the order of £100. The price of capping a gas pipe isn't going to depend on the size of the gas appliance anyway.


The fireplace we removed ourselves. The internal wall (it's a timber framed house with external brickwork) we re-plasterboarded ourselves. The hole in the external brick wall I filled myself. All simple and cheap when it's DIY.

Thank you- this is a really helpful starting point!

amateur_house

I got an estimate to have a 1930s fireplace and gas fire taken out and replaced with a new fireplace. The estimate was £1200, to include the new fire. Not sure how helpful this is to your situation.

AlexMac

Coming a bit late to this, but I agree it will not cost more than a couple of hundred. A thought or two;
- Gas safety; when I removed a gas fire (for safety, from a rental flat) I obviously used a "Gas Safe" engineer, as you must. They did the usual "pressure test" at the meter; which revealed a pressure loss somewhere on the underfloor pipe runs - so we capped off the whole circuit at the meter end (rather than leaving leaky pipes under the floors by capping at the old fire site). And ran a new, clean supply to the boiler and kitchen hob. Didn't cost the earth.

Only a bodger would do 'owt else?

And as regards the chimney, or lack of it; bricking up, or filling holes, making good and re-decorating is lamost a DIY job, although a pro will make a neater job...

...but it might be worth asking a vaguely competent builder to confirm that if there was a flue, or chimney void in the wall (otherwise, how was the gas fire vented?) that it has been removed safely, with no unsupported chimney stack at roof level or above.