Skimming walls/New fire opening!

moonpenny

Morning everyone.  Need some advice on what to do first.

Re-doing Lounge and need to have walls and ceiling skimmed after removing years of painted wallpaper.

Am also wanting to put in a gas stove inside the chimney opening which will probably need to be opened up a bit to be made bigger.
I have a gas fire at the moment that is placed on the fireplace wall

Question is, do I have the room skimmed first or the fire fitted first?  I am nowhere near organizing the fire installation yet but could get on with the skimming. Would it be a bad move skimming first?

jonnydeppiwish!

I would enlarge the fireplace first, then skim, then install the fire.
Do you have a gas supply to the fireplace already?
Also, it it the depth of the fireplace that needs enlarging? If so, that’s should be relatively straightforward if there is a fireback set in.

If widening, you may need a structural engineer

moonpenny

Thanks!  Yes, I do have a gas supply. I used to have an open fire many moons ago but don't know how far back the opening goes. 
The widening bit bothers me as I would want that  but as the width of the wall is not very wide anyway it might not be possible. Will have to rethink!

FreeBear

moonpenny said:

Thanks!  Yes, I do have a gas supply. I used to have an open fire many moons ago but don't know how far back the opening goes. 
The widening bit bothers me as I would want that  but as the width of the wall is not very wide anyway it might not be possible. Will have to rethink!

Assuming a ground floor with no fireplaces below, the opening should be around 400mm less than the width of the breast. If you have a fireback in there, there will be quite a bit of rubble filling the void. I managed to fill a 1 tonne bulk bag when I knocked my fireplace out.

jonnydeppiwish!

FreeBear said:

moonpenny said:

Thanks!  Yes, I do have a gas supply. I used to have an open fire many moons ago but don't know how far back the opening goes. 
The widening bit bothers me as I would want that  but as the width of the wall is not very wide anyway it might not be possible. Will have to rethink!

Assuming a ground floor with no fireplaces below, the opening should be around 400mm less than the width of the breast. If you have a fireback in there, there will be quite a bit of rubble filling the void. I managed to fill a 1 tonne bulk bag when I knocked my fireplace out.

I’m got 7 rubble bags filled when I took mine out last month - cemented in all the way!