Chimney stack removal

[Origin Unknown]

Evening

We are moving to a 3 bedroom hopefully in the next 4 weeks or so. The rooms are smaller than we have, albeit more rooms that we have currently. There is an unused chimney breast in the lounge and stack in the master bedroom that I would like to remove. It won't make a big difference in terms of available area but will make a huge difference to the usable space of the rooms.

As the blind leading the blind tents to be fairly successful (), a few questions:

1: Do chimney stacks tend to bear load from the roof?
2: Why do people tend to remove the breast from first and/or second, but leave the stack in the loft?
3: Providing the stack bears no load from the roof, what's to stop me from removing the whole stack from top to bottom and putting the hole in the roof right?
4: If I'm removing the whole stack, not leaving the stack in the roof and therefore not having to support it with RSJ's, do building regs apply?

I have a use for the bricks so it would be a softly softly approach

[Total loss]

Origin Unknown said:

3: Providing the stack bears no load from the roof, what's to stop me from removing the whole stack from top to bottom and putting the hole in the roof right?
4: If I'm removing the whole stack, not leaving the stack in the roof and therefore not having to support it with RSJ's, do building regs apply?

Thats what I did. A builder friend said no building regs applied & no need to tell/ask the council. Next door was recently sold & the new owner said he was going to do the same. I passed on my info, but he rang the council anyway & they said go ahead nothing to do with them.

[Bonefish Blues]

It's big job mind - our builder decided that would be a smart thing to do during our (fixed price) renovation.

Took them nearly a week as someone had filled chunks of it with concrete or similar, and they had to hand-carry it out.

[Jonleeper]

We have done exatally the same in our house. The rafters were split round the breast and the floor joists boxed in the breast without relying on it for support. The only problem we had was an existing RSJ that was supported on both sides of the breast inside the first-floor but that has been solved. Note that if it has been used in the past then it will be a very dirty job as soot and ash will have built up inside and you will have to get rid of it. You will also need to plan for a skim of render to make good the back brick face of the breast you will expose in the rooms where the breast was. My chimney breast took up at least one 80 cubic yard skip (£120 for me) so plan for that as well. It has dramatically opened up the lounge though so well worth the effort. It is a dirty horrible job and there will be lots of rubble. Getting out usable bricks may b a problem as mine, 1950's build, was rendered internally and most of the bricks broke-up rather than coming out whole.

Good luck,

Jon

[Busamav]

Origin Unknown said:

Evening

2: Why do people tend to remove the breast from first and/or second, but leave the stack in the loft?

Because the stack above roof level is often shared with the adjoining property.

Just do your homework before starting , especially if it adjoins the neighbour , see what they have or have not done and what is left.

[TooLateForAName]

Yes - probably need to serve a party wall notice. If next door have removed the lower part of the stack and have the top bit supported on brackets, then you remove all your side then there is the possibility of the whole thing collapsing.

[Origin Unknown]

Cheers and thanks for the extended info chaps Especially with regards to re-using the bricks.

Slipped my mind about shared chimneys; makes more sense now why people go to the effort of removing 2/3's and having to get our good friends at building control out to look at a lintel supporting a stack you'll never see

Thankfully ours is only ours so no problem removing it. I'll report back if I can get this projec underway. Got to get various people to sign on the dotted line before anything exciting can happen