Opening plastered chimney

[Katherina198819]

We have a 1950s cottage with a large chimney in the kitchen. Since it’s in a rural area, I believe the original owner may have used it for cooking. Unfortunately, the house was “modernised” in the late 1990s, and the chimney was plastered over.
We’re planning to reopen it and install an open fire. However, we don’t know when it was last used, and I’m concerned it might be expensive to open up and restore. We have an appointment booked with a chimney sweep to inspect it, but I’m curious if anyone else has had experience with this kind of situation.
I’d love to hear about the costs involved—I understand it depends on the condition of the chimney and what was done to it during the renovation. The chimney runs through the second floor and still looks good from the outside, so I don’t think it’s been completely destroyed. Any experiences?

After that amount of time it may need a new chimney flue liner. DM didn’t go ahead with opening her chimney a few years ago because of this.
Google says price depends on type chosen, bends involved and type of fuel to be used and could be 600-900 now just to replace the liner, so not including opening it up/plastering/decorating too, but I imagine a lot is area dependent also.

I've done this a few times (have moved a lot). Never regretted it, but have always installed multifuel stoves, not open fires. Open fires are not very efficient. If you look in your local area for a fireplace shop they will have contractors that can do the whole thing for you.
My last one was about £3k for the stove and installation, including the flue liner. But I have made good the fireplace myself, buying a hearth, installing it, clearing out the old firebox and installing the new one, tiling the surround and hanging a mantle. If it's had someone do all that it likely would've cost another 2-3k.

If your chimney needs lining, then you will almost certainly need scaffolding, which adds considerably to the cost. I agree with the previous poster that a multi fuel stove is more practical than an open fire - I have both in my house, but the open fire is really more ornamental, certainly in terms of generating heat.

We have a budget of £3,000 for the project. We're considering a raised open fire, mainly for decorative purposes.

We already have a contractor who has agreed to remove the plaster and handle the cosmetic work. Since our whole kitchen is being redone, it makes sense to do everything at once—it will be messy either way.

I'm a bit concerned about the costs and really hope we can stay within our budget.
Also, would a chimney sweep be able to assess what work needs to be done, or should I look for someone else for that?

An open fire has an efficiency rating of about 10%. And creates howling draughts. A decent stove has an efficiency rating of over 85% these days. If the fireplace is big enough, you can buy a stove with a flat top and you can cook on it when the electricity goes out etc. I love doing that. I cook my porridge on it some mornings.

And it can still look good.

Because it’s been blocked up for so long , ime
I would be checking the mortar joints on the outside of chimney first, also if you can access it in the loft ,
maybe a bigger job than u think, a chimney sweep proper will carry out a smoke test ,
I’ve done several chimney repairs over the years , had one recently which smoke test
resulted in having to repoint the chimney stack.

I would make a smallish hole in it and put my phone in and take some pictures to see up and down to see what it looks like inside.

(When I say 'I would' , I don't mean that I will actually do it, it's more a fgure of speech.)

I had a fire place re commissioned in February. It was a previous open fire we changed it to a multi fuels 1930s. It was £1500 for new liner, slate hearth and connection and hetas certification. We already had the stove from previous house. On company quoted £3000 as they wanted to use scaffolding so shop around. When they got up there we also needed work on the chimney which was £900 and we had that done a few weeks ago.

We had three quotes for the the work on the chimney from HETAS installers.

shop around!