Chimney breast removal … messy?

[London2357]

Hello
i have just moved into a new home and I am getting four chimney breasts removed in my house, I am wondering if it is worth I paint the other walls in the rooms beforehand or leave it until the work is done. My only problem is the work isn’t going to be done till July August time, and that means that I’ve got to live with how the house is (how the old owners had the house) It’s been basically every room of the house both bedrooms and both living room and kitchen so ideally I’d like to just get painting with the rest of the walls and just leave the walls where the chimney breast are, but is the entire house going to be really dirty and messy and am I going to need to repaint after?!

also furniture wise I’d love to get furniture in my house. I’m currently living with what I had beforehand. Is it a risk to buy new furniture? Is it going to get ruined?

Has anyone had chimney breast removed and have experiencing this?

thank you!!

I’d wait until the work is done. There will be brick dust everywhere.

Definitely don't do anything big before the work is done, it will get ruined.

Is it a detached house? If not, don't forget you will need a party wall agreement with your neighbours to have your chimney breasts removed as if it's not done with the right techniques, their own chimney breasts will start to experience structural problems when they don't have yours to lean against

One chimney breast can be a full skips worth of bricks. The dust and soot will be unbelievable.

I can't really understand why someone would want to do this.

Probably better and a lot less risky (and maybe even cheaper) to get a house of big enough size in the first place.

thanks for your input @GasPanic what a lovely life you lead.

Seriously not worth doing anything til they’re out.
I once had this done in a sitting room (had been removed from bedroom above and loft before I bought the house). We had decorated upstairs and moved everything in. We went on holiday whilst it was being done so we weren’t living in the mess but we closed all doors everywhere except the room being worked on, covered furniture, sealed gaps in downstairs cupboards etc. The work was done well and they were tidy workers. When we got back I expected dust everywhere downstairs. What I didn’t expect was that every single room upstairs would have a layer of thick dust everywhere including inside the wardrobes and airing cupboard and all over all clothes, towels etc in them. I almost had a breakdown at the amount of work.

Definitely wait until the dust has settled. I have no experience with fireplace removal, but every scrap of plaster had to be removed from our bungalow and we were living there throughout. It goes everywhere and you don’t want to ruin any decorating and waste money and hard work redoing it all over again.
Good Luck!

I recently had a chimney breast removed and the builders were able to put up a plasterboard partition and seal all round the edges, so it wasn't actually dusty in the rest of the house and all the furniture could be stored the other side. The side where the work had been done was dusty, but it was wipeable - the blinds had been accidentally left on the windows and we managed to clean them.

However, for the sake of a few months, I'd wait to decorate, especially as you'll have to do the chimney-less walls anyway so it's not going to be perfect and beautiful until after the work is completed.

I would do nothing at all, no new furniture, no painting etc. until the building work is done. It is only a few months to wait.

Be very careful and make sure that you don't just remove eg the chimney breast on ground/first floor but leave the one in the loft with the chimney stack on top (could potentially be a serious structural issue).

you possibly need building regs sign off as it's structural work.

but yes, it's incredibly dusty work. even dust sheets and daily cleaning will not help much.

I once had a brick fireplace removed, I asked the builders if needed to move all the furniture in the room. He said no just hover with dust sheets.
I should gave moved everything! Red brick dust is incredibly hard to clean up!!!

Are they taking the whole chimney down? What about the ceilings? If they are the old large and plaster, and you do not have ornate coving, I’d replace them.

4!
That's a lot of work.

Live with it.
It'll be awful messy no matter how hard they try. Henry is the best vac to deal with building dirt that escapes their control.

Lathe and plaster

Are they doing them all at once? That’s a huge amount of work and I’m sure will need quite a lot of structural works to support the house when they are gone. It’s not worth decorating. I think you’ll need to move out to be honest.

is it an old house? If so, please get good advice and structural calculations done.

Are they removing the stacks from the roof as well?

Thank you everyone for your comments! We have party wall and drawings etc.

we are keeping the stack from above the roof as per neighbour request is that ok?

I won’t decorate until they do it then!

we are going away during the work!

they are currently bricked up chimneys so not even functional, they are 2.5m wide by .7m deep!! Absolutely massive. Means the bedrooms have no wardrobe space and the living room and dining room are taken over by these massive chimney breasts that don’t even operate as fires!! If they had a fireplace I’d think twice.

thank you for all your feedback … will buy lots of dust sheets for my bed etc etc

You will need a party wall agreement and building regulations.

To keep the chimney stack will mean you need to support it underneath - usually with steels. Have you had a structural engineer look at this? Chimneys offer stability to a building - removing 4 of them is a huge change.

You could always put the fireplaces back!

Our lounge is eventually going to become our bedroom ( it's a bungalow ) and although it has a chimney stack in the room it's never ( thankfully ) had an open fire .
The previous owner had a gas fire and we just have it blocked over.
I'm not looking forward to it either as obviously a new ceiling / wall plastering etc is needed as well .
I keep telling myself it will be lovely once done .
Good luck.

@London2357 “will buy lots of dust sheets for my bed etc etc”

Pile everything in the other rooms without fireplaces. Then tape the door shut. A dust sheet is not going to save anything from the dust. I’d rather put everything in the shed/garage than leave it under dust sheets.

As per PP, chimneys need proper support in the loft. Gone are the days of a bit of 4” by 4” laying across the ceiling joists.

I had my ground floor completely renovated last year and, of all the things that happened, it was the removal of the chimney that nearly broke me. The amount of red dust and rubble was insane, and took a long, long time to settle. One year later and I'm still finding bits of the old chimney in odd places. And yes, we had to have large steel beams put in the attic to secure the integrity of the house structure.

Do you mind if I ask what you’re going to pay? I have been quoted £4000 to take down the chimney stack and one fireplace. With an additional £2000 to put in the steel beams underneath it.

hello, £19000 plus VAT. however we have a part flat roof so it means the standard beams you would have put in, we can't have so we have to have beams put in from the front of the house to the back and side to side which are huge! that's for 4 chimney breast stacks. it will make such a huge difference though as they currently aren't even useable. I got another quote for £15000 plus vat but we are going with the builder we know and trust! felt something like this was worth that!!

That sounds pretty good relatively speaking. It’ll be worth it in the end.

hi ,
I want to remove my chimney breast as well. Can you share who removed it ? Was it a trade man or a construction company ? can you let me know the details so I can get quotation for my house as well? Thanks