Taking out chimney breast

[AndWhat]

Hi, moving onto the kitchen stage of our renovation. We’ve knocked down a wall to make a large room and ideally need to remove an old chimney breast. We can keep the main structure and just make the hole bigger or take the whole lot down to get more worktop space.
Anyone done this? Any advice as we are hoping to do most of the work ourselves?

Removing the whole thing is a Big Job as it has implications for whatevers above it. You might have to get building control to sign it off too.

I took the whole thing out, well paid someone to do it. The big advantage for us was the chimney breast in the bedroom above was taking up alot of space so we had a big open plan kitchen and a better proportioned bedroom. It was about 35 years ago and it was expensive but we were pleased with the result.

Yes we had to get building control to sign it off, we had the chimney breast in the kitchen and bedroom removed and also in the loft and the chimney. I think you can just have it taken out on the ground floor but need a big RSJ to hold everything up. As I said we liked the space in the bedroom so had the lot out.

Just removed a chimney breast on ground floor and floor above. Chimney itself removed a couple of years ago. Done by builders but has given us much better shaped rooms - was a large corner chimney so rooms are now rectangular. Messy. Not sure it a a DIY job as you don’t know how the chimney is tied in. In our case the interior wall was not tied into the exterior wall, so additional wall ties required. Builder and structural surveyor swapped photos and talked solutions over the phone.

@AndWhat

Hi, moving onto the kitchen stage of our renovation. We’ve knocked down a wall to make a large room and ideally need to remove an old chimney breast. We can keep the main structure and just make the hole bigger or take the whole lot down to get more worktop space. Anyone done this? Any advice as we are hoping to do most of the work ourselves?

What do you mean by main structure? The chimney above? It will need a steel or concrete support if you remove everything below. Can you make the hole bigger - you mean the fireplace opening? This should have a lintel above the opening, if you open wider than the lintel then it wil all collapse. Pic might help. You can certainly remove the whole lot but as mentioned, it's a big job!

The chimney is part of the structural integrity of the house. All the weight of the chimney is going through the chimney breast into the ground via the foundations. You need a structural engineer to advise and design a rsj to support the structures above and ensure the weight goes into the ground.

Fire places and chimney breasts are often made from Rock hard fire bricks and stone. They are very hard to remove and you must support the weight above. Or it could all collapse. This is a job for professionals.

You’ve knocked down a wall already? Did you have builder or have you done that yourselves? If the latter are you sure it’s not a supporting wall...?

Chimney breast removal definitely requires supporting steel for whatever is above (ie the rest of the chimneybreast) and removal of any supporting wall does too. And building regs sign off. Otherwise your house is unsafe and will struggle to sell.

It's a bigger job than you think, and not one I'd suggest to DIY.

We had one of our chimney breasts removed a couple of years ago. Had to get an RSJ put in to support the house structure, plus pay building inspection from council to sign off. It cost us in the region of £2k all in.

Many thanks all. A builder took the wall down and we have a large rsj in to hold that wall up.
I had seen pics online of people putting ovens in a large gap in a chimney breast and wondered if we could do that ourselves by making the small fire hole bigger but it seems it sounds a bigger job than we thought.

@AndWhat

Many thanks all. A builder took the wall down and we have a large rsj in to hold that wall up. I had seen pics online of people putting ovens in a large gap in a chimney breast and wondered if we could do that ourselves by making the small fire hole bigger but it seems it sounds a bigger job than we thought.

Yes and no, depending on what you really want to do! Moving a lintel upwards is relatively straight forward giving you room to put the oven in. Removing the whole thing is way bigger job!

You can make the opening bigger (higher ) without any problems , just put in a lintel higher up. I’ve done this before to house a range cooker and then installed the extractor inside the chimney with the flue going out the chimney pot , the worktops were built around the sides, all looked good when it was done and saved a lot of work removing all the chimney breast.