Chimney breast removal

[iD]

Hi all and thank you in advance for any help. 

I’m thinking of removing chimney breast from my property and have met an interesting “issue”. 

I understood that we can put gallows bracket in the loft to support chimney stack weight and have confirmed with my Councils building control. They’re happy for me to do that and asked me to send them a building notice which I have done.

i had a builder in today to see the extent of the job and he thinks 
* We don’t need gallows bracket as chimney stack doesn’t seem to be sitting on the breast entirely anyway (apparently it’s embedded in the wall). 

* Even if we want to put the brackets, we don’t have enough room as it’s right at the end of the loft. 

* Chimney breast on the first floor isn’t sitting on ground floor chimney. 

Safe to say that I’m very confused but he might at least be right about breast not sitting on top of each other since first floor chimney breast is at the end of the room where ground floor breast is off from the edge of the original wall. 

I have some photos and designs and hoping you guys can shed some light on how to go about it. 

I will have structural engineer visiting this weekend but hope to gather as much info as I can before his visit. 

Doozergirl

Just get a structural engineer in.  It's what I would expect to be doing anyway to get it signed off by building control.  

Section62

[iD] said:

Hi all and thank you in advance for any help. 

I’m thinking of removing chimney breast from my property and have met an interesting “issue”. 

I understood that we can put gallows bracket in the loft to support chimney stack weight and have confirmed with my Councils building control. They’re happy for me to do that and asked me to send them a building notice which I have done.

i had a builder in today to see the extent of the job and he thinks 
* We don’t need gallows bracket as chimney stack doesn’t seem to be sitting on the breast entirely anyway (apparently it’s embedded in the wall). 

* Even if we want to put the brackets, we don’t have enough room as it’s right at the end of the loft. 

* Chimney breast on the first floor isn’t sitting on ground floor chimney. 

Safe to say that I’m very confused but he might at least be right about breast not sitting on top of each other since first floor chimney breast is at the end of the room where ground floor breast is off from the edge of the original wall. 

I have some photos and designs and hoping you guys can shed some light on how to go about it. 

I will have structural engineer visiting this weekend but hope to gather as much info as I can before his visit. 

Do you think the neighbour would agree to removing the whole of the stack above roof level?  That would be the easiest way, and a better long-term solution.

There is nothing particularly unusual about your chimney arrangement - it is common with semis for the chimney to be built into the party wall, and also common for chimney flues to have a horizontal displacement rather than being fully vertical.  Neither of which mean the chimney won't need additional support if part of it below is removed.

You are fortunate your LABC still accept gallows brackets (many don't).  In an extreme case you could use gallows brackets which partially intrude through the ceiling of the first floor bedroom (but are boxed in).  This would give you clear floor space, albeit with restricted headroom.

I'd also use a different builder to this one.  They don't seem to have the level of knowledge about how chimneys are constructed to be able to safely remove part of one.

[iD]

Section62 said:

Do you think the neighbour would agree to removing the whole of the stack above roof level?  That would be the easiest way, and a better long-term solution.

There is nothing particularly unusual about your chimney arrangement - it is common with semis for the chimney to be built into the party wall, and also common for chimney flues to have a horizontal displacement rather than being fully vertical.  Neither of which mean the chimney won't need additional support if part of it below is removed.

You are fortunate your LABC still accept gallows brackets (many don't).  In an extreme case you could use gallows brackets which partially intrude through the ceiling of the first floor bedroom (but are boxed in).  This would give you clear floor space, albeit with restricted headroom.

I'd also use a different builder to this one.  They don't seem to have the level of knowledge about how chimneys are constructed to be able to safely remove part of one.

Thank you

I don’t think Neighbhour’s interested in getting any work done on their end. They were kind enough to not make trying to create an issue out of it. 

I did ask the builder about putting the brackets in the room even if it means having a mystery box at the top of the room. He didn't think the whole thing was needed.  Safe to assume that I know next to nothing about them. 

Good suggestion on getting another builder, I’ll also have the architect in and see what they say as well. 

Eldi_Dos

OP. 
Would the work you are proposing add value to your property, stoves are becoming more and more popular and any future buyer may consider the existing chimney as a plus point.

Section62

[iD] said:

Section62 said:

Do you think the neighbour would agree to removing the whole of the stack above roof level?  That would be the easiest way, and a better long-term solution.

There is nothing particularly unusual about your chimney arrangement - it is common with semis for the chimney to be built into the party wall, and also common for chimney flues to have a horizontal displacement rather than being fully vertical.  Neither of which mean the chimney won't need additional support if part of it below is removed.

You are fortunate your LABC still accept gallows brackets (many don't).  In an extreme case you could use gallows brackets which partially intrude through the ceiling of the first floor bedroom (but are boxed in).  This would give you clear floor space, albeit with restricted headroom.

I'd also use a different builder to this one.  They don't seem to have the level of knowledge about how chimneys are constructed to be able to safely remove part of one.

Thank you

I don’t think Neighbhour’s interested in getting any work done on their end. They were kind enough to not make trying to create an issue out of it. 

I did ask the builder about putting the brackets in the room even if it means having a mystery box at the top of the room. He didn't think the whole thing was needed.  Safe to assume that I know next to nothing about them. 

Good suggestion on getting another builder, I’ll also have the architect in and see what they say as well. 

It would be a structural engineer you need, not an architect.  An architect will just charge you their margin for getting a SE to do the bulk of the work.

You could point out to the neighbour that the chimney is in need of painting, and there's a possibility the render is failing.  I also wouldn't be surprised if the flashing is in need of some work.  Because of your rear extension it will be tricky to get scaffolding up for doing the repair work... so full removal (to loft level) would be a once-and-for-all solution.

stuart45

It looks to me like part of the chimney breast on the ground floor was removed in the past. If the upper floor is brickwork, what is taking it's weight. You wouldn't normally build a chimney like that. The ground floor chimney breast is built wide enough to take the masonry above.

[iD]

stuart45 said:

It looks to me like part of the chimney breast on the ground floor was removed in the past. If the upper floor is brickwork, what is taking its weight. You wouldn't normally build a chimney like that. The ground floor chimney breast is built wide enough to take the masonry above.

This is an interesting question. Exactly what I asked the builder and he recons some stone slab (honestly didn’t catch that) would be been installed on first floor to take the weight. Honestly not sure how this works. 

About the removal, the ground floor chimney would have to be super wide for it to cover the first floor weight. 

Possibly worth asking the neighbours what their chimney looks like. 

[iD]

Eldi_Dos said:

OP. 
Would the work you are proposing add value to your property, stoves are becoming more and more popular and any future buyer may consider the existing chimney as a plus point.

Maybe, I’m purely looking at this from our own use case. 

It’ll open the room or at least fix the layout to what we want it to be tbh. 

stuart45

I've never seen it done that way, so I'd guess it would be a reinforced concrete slab that was bearing on the external wall, top of the brickwork of the lower chimney and party wall. Possibly goes right across the party wall so it's done as one slab for both houses. If it does go right across the removal from one side might affect the other.

[iD]

Thanks everyone
Looking at my own drawing, I think I got it slightly wrong in the first floor as chimney breast on the first floor goes right till the end. Stack is also at the end of the loft as well.

Since the stack is in the corner of the loft, it doesn't leave us with much room to install brackets in the loft. I am more leaning towards what @Section62 suggested. Although we'd have a little box in the room but still better than massive chimney breast.

I have updated the designs below, please let me know if this seems viable.