Chimney breast questions but let's leave off my flue...

[MovingOnUpMovingOnOut]

...for now.

I'm wanting to widen and existing chimney breast with a view to putting in a 90cm range cooker. I've checked and the stack goes all the way up so I need an expert but what sort? I am honestly clueless.

The sides of it when I tapped sound hollow on the outside. The inside is lined with tiles and has an extractor fan (let's leave whether the flue is properly lined and sucking up all he right stuff or a death trap for now) in the top and a gas/electric cooker in the bottom.

At the moment the opening is 88cm wide.

Sodding typos! Sorry

you want a nice buildery type chap.

we had a chimney breast/old fireplace in the kitchen and wanted to put the oil range in there

buildery chap said it might be tight, so I bashed all the plasterboard off, and in the end he had to widen it by about 4 inches....I am trying to remember how he did it but I honestly cannot ...I think my mind is going!

It was very many years ago....we had to have a proper chimney liner in as it was oil, and he rebuilt the front and sides nicely with the bricks stepped down, so as well as having somewhere to store all sorts of fancy salt, pepper and other cooky things it also collects the dust beautifully

probably not at all helpful! :o

you want a nice buildery type chap

Well yes, but back to the topic at hand

With your chimney breast sounding hollow, how old is your house?

Only talking about chimney breast here. 😀

Builder will be able to.do this easily enough. I've had two chimney breast openings made wider to accommodate wood burning stoves and it was done quickly if messily

It'a a Victorian house. 1860s/1880s depending who you talk to.

Reassuring it's probably a builder job rather than a structural engineer and a special chimney expert (chimney-ist??!) sorta thing.

you say the opening is 880, but how wide is the entire breast? The sides would typically be about 250mm on the ground floor, and one of them wider upstairs.

If you just want to fit a 900mm cooker, you might manage it just by hacking off the tiles and plaster.

Do you actually want to use the flue for anything? If you want cooking fumes to go up it you will need a duct, or the brickwork will be soaked in condensation and grease haze.

Id get a fireplace person to come and look as they will be able to advise about whether your flue is suitable , we are just having work done to a chimney breast and have had a mix of opinions from builders and fireplace specialists and the builders were all fairly useless when it came to flues .

I'm going to need to do a picture to explain it. I'd take a photo but I might as well post my name and address as the previous owners had rather, erm, unique taste.

I'll be back. Thanks for all the help so far.

I would lay good money on the chimney not being properly lined to cope with the extractor fan - but I have a vague idea how to deal with that.

I'm coming round to the idea of leaving it well alone and actually making it smaller by putting built in ovens and microwave in the cavity and taking out the rest!

you need at least 9 inches of brick left to support the chimney on either side of the opening (1 brick length). Absolutely get a competent builder in (it doesn't have to be a man ), who should be able to advise and comply with building regs. Please don't start knocking things down yourself if you are not absolutely sure what you are doing, at best your building insurance won't cover any damage, at worse it could lead to fatalities.

I have absolutely no intention of knocking anything down. I'm even nervous about taking off the tiles as they may be the only thing holding it all up!

This house has been full of nasty surprises.

I'll crack on with that diagram.