Has anyone reopened a chimney?

[DitaVonCheese]

New house has original chimneys which now contain a back boiler with an ugly gas fire in front. We are ditching the back boiler and fire and I want to reopen the chimney and thus realise my dream of real wood fires in winter Has anyone done this? Is it particularly difficult? Any tips or advice very welcome!

yes, no not particularly difficult, but very messy.

I'd second HH, just very messy - we've done it a couple of times and I can never get over just how much rubble etc comes from such a smallish space. It's definitely worth doing tho'

One thing to be careful about is that the gas fire will (should) have a special liner going up the chimney (because the exhaust gases are much hotter than from wood/coal fires). Once that's removed you'd need to check the condition of the internal brickwork to ensure that it's in good enough condition. Since you should get the chimney swept anyway before lighting a wood fire, it would be worth finding an experienced chimney sweep to check out the inside of the chimney.

Even if there is a problem, you could go for a wood-burning stove which will also have a liner.

also dont forget the ancillary costs.. so opening up is one cost, then you have to think about hearth, slips, fire surround, basket etc.

Many thanks! House is a state at the moment as we've just had complete rewiring done, so brick dust on absolutely everything, so this seems like a good time to do it (we're not moved in yet, luckily). Plumber hopefully starting boiler removal next week. Had no idea about liners etc so that's very helpful - there goes my plan of sending DD up to sweep the chimney