To have only just noticed the death of the chimney!

[Foxyloxymoxy]

I was driving home and through an area full of new housing estates and I’ve only just noticed that there’s no chimneys. I don’t know why this has only hit me now as I live in a new build with no chimney 🤣🤣 but it really changes the skyline completely! Anyone else notice this?!

Not here. Part of the planning permission on the houses being built in our village specifically requires chimneys. They also must have EV charging points and solar panels.

Our power goes down with every storm. No sane person would buy a house without a chimney or flue of some kind here.

Our NB has a chimney although it is a GRP replica but you would never know without getting up there and touching it.

A quick Google search shows that they are very common.

It’s chimneys galore around here, but I live in a conservation area. We also have a working chimney. It’s the sort of thing you don’t really notice until you think about it.

No chimneys in new house here for years now, and reading about Santa, or the big bad wolf climbing down the chimney to catch the 3 little pigs, will be confusing to a whole generation of children soon!

That’s crazy that they require them. Here we are encouraged against them for energy efficiency standards as open fires and chimneys create large heat losses and we are moving towards Air-tight construction
Modern homes are designed to be highly insulated and airtight so a chimney would constantly draw warm air out, undermining this airtightness.
Most new houses here now use heat pumps, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR), or other renewable/low-carbon heating systems instead of solid fuel or oil.
We are phasing out carbon emissions so it has to be done.
houses must get at least 20% of their primary energy from renewable sources here now. So solar panels and heat pumps are standard with new builds.

That’s crazy that they require them. Here we are encouraged against them for energy efficiency standards as open fires and chimneys create large heat losses and we are moving towards Air-tight construction
Modern homes are designed to be highly insulated and airtight so a chimney would constantly draw warm air out, undermining the airtightness.
Most new houses here now use heat pumps, mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR), or other renewable/low-carbon heating systems instead of solid fuel or oil.
We are phasing out carbon emissions so it has to be done.
houses must get at least 20% of their primary energy from renewable sources here now. So solar panels and heat pumps are standard with new builds.

Not something that would ever register with me so I've looked on rightmove and based on the new build properties for sale in my area more have chimneys than not

Not scientific of course but enough to conclude that chimneys are alive and well

Sometimes they are pretend chimneys because people think it’s more upmarket to have a chimney

To be honest I love not having a fireplace anymore. The dust and dirt associated with them drove me nuts. I like that my house is just warm…it’s too warm still sometimes 🤣 saves time too.

Being involved in the permission process it is so difficult to ensure chimneys are included. Roofscapes are really important and chimneys form part of that. It is particularly important where the local area is full of chimneys. At best I’ve negotiated a scheme with a good developer where chimneys were included on every plot. At worst I get them on key buildings.

the argument against them is that they aren’t used for anything and impact sustainability. The other argument is to not encourage the use of wood burning stoves. However, if they are a tradition in the local area then they are important to ensure that the new development fits in and is good design.

its a thankless task as developers want to maximise profit and reduce costs on such details. But the cost of these sorts of details is often offset by the increase in price that they can get with better quality and design.

I adore my fireplace and working chimney, it’s so lovely in the colder months. Then again I just adore old buildings in general, new builds are not for me.

A new build estate near me had fake chimneys on some of the houses. Clearly they caused leaks, because you could watch the scaffolding go up and the roof be repaired around the chimney through the estate virtually in the order the houses were built.

What a waste of time, effort and money!!

We live in a new build and we have a pretend chimney!! Its on the roof but no fireplace or actual chimney flue or anything!

Good grief!

No wonder our planning system is on n a mess if this is the standard of thought among our planners

It's not "good design" to put an obligatory non-functional, ornamental, pastiche feature on the roof of a contemporary home. How on earth is it "better quality" to include a redundant artefact on a building? Absolute nonsense argument!

Do you insist all the chimneys have a TV aerial installed as well to replicate that historic late 20th century roofscape?

Yes I cant bear it. I see it all the time and say to myself 'no chimney!'

I would never buy a house with no chimney and I dont like views of houses without them either

We have a wood burner and I would want that in any other house I buy too

Open fires are pretty much banned in new builds here and since May this year stoves must be sealed, single-room solid fuel stoves (so wood burning stoves that burn renewable wood) can still be installed in new homes, but that’s only provided the overall building still meets energy and carbon performance requirements.

Old house here with chimney and open fire. My builder FIL always said a house needed a chimney to 'breathe', peesum he meant air circulation.
Although we have a cage on our pots to stop birds nesting in them.

So they’re like male nipples or appendixes — sort of evolutionary leftovers.

Yeah ours is mechanically ventilated now, so still ventilated. Just airtight. No drafts. Stays warmer longer.

🤣🤣🤣🤣

There must be thousands of acres of 1960s and 70s estates in the UK without a single chimney (real or otherwise) to be seen.

Do you open the windows?

Yes of course.

Has nobody mentioned Father Christmas yet? How will he deliver the prezzies? 🎁 Will a future generation reading the Three Little Pigs not understand how the wolf tried to get in? 🐷 🐷 🐷 🐺

Mind you, they haven’t yet found an alternative to the toilet pipe vent. That still sticks up like a chimney.