Reinstating functioning chimney breast

[Whathewhatnow]

I'm looking at a house that appears to have had the chimney breast removed from the the 1st floor bedroom.

I love fires and would want to get a wood burner put in.

Chimney breast still there at ground floor level and the stack is still on the roof.

Leaving aside the issue of whether the work had building regs (have asked EA to investigate, I'm aware of potential issues if not)...

How much to reinstate the chimney breast? South west London which probably means double anywhere else! I know the approx cost of having a stove fitted with a flue liner etc, it's the building work I'm unsure of.

Alternatively.... can you run a flue through a bedroom without a chimney breast?? Prob not, it might set your floorboards on fire!

You can run a suitably insulated flu through a bedroom ( unless regs have changed).

A bigger, more urgent issue is getting a surveyor to examine whether the chimney stack has actually been properly supported. If not, it could collapse.

I bought a house where the chimney breast had been removed in the smallest bedroom, probably to make more space. Given that there were other dodgy things, I suspected that they had literally just removed the chimney breast, without any adequate support for all the brickwork of the stack above it.
My surveyor confirmed this. He said ,' Yeah, buy the house, this can be sorted. But don't move in until it has been. '

Thanks @Evidencebased that is really useful information. And yes, the whole collapsing thing is a bit freaky and would definitely want it sorted. I've had a sneaky look on the council's building regs records and.... nope, no buildings regs. Vendor's EA has gone silent which is daft because if rectifiable this stuff wouldnt necessarily put me off making an offer...

If its missing on the first floor and intact on the ground floor and has a chimney the question is what's holding the chimney up has it got structural steel in hold the chimney up in the ceiling ? Its not a big job to rebuild the chimney breast back up and put a flue liner all the way through and you only need to put one flue in from the ground floor . but if its not structurally sound it better to put it back as was originally .

We live in a newish build without a fire place.

Just been quoted £5000 to include a false chimney breast all lined etc

That’s for fire plastering hearth linings tiling or cladding the inset including boxing in in the eves.

It’s a bungalow and no current chimney - so it depends on and structural work if there’s no supporting steel.

Yes I'd def get a structural engineer's perspective on whether chimney stack adequately supported.

£5,000. Whew. Plus the 3000 or so fir the actual stove, fitting, HETAS signoff etc. Worth bearing in mind when making offer as I think I might end up doing...