Opening up fireplace - central heating pipes inside!

[IndieRocknRoll]

We are in the process of opening up an old fireplace so that we can install a wood burner. We have discovered copper central heating pipes running along the back of the chimney. They are stlll part of the system according to DH and not part of an old back boiler that has been removed etc.
Anyone had any experience of this? I’m hoping we can put heat resistant board of similar in front of them maybe? I’ll be contacting our installer next week but grateful if any advice in the meantime.

I think you will need to reroute the pipes but that should be fairly doable. Looks like they come up under the main floor and then disappear off into the wall on the left. Where do they go next?

I think they go into the wall then down under the floor (suspended wooden floor in 1920s house) Why they didn’t just go under the floor in the first place?! Bizarre!

No cellar I assume? Getting them rerouted should be a few hundred pounds and almost certainly worth doing. Looks like someone botched it first time round.

You will probably find at some point there was a combined boiler/fireplace (Baxi Boiler) which were very common.

The pipe could be the gas feed to your boiler having been re-routed from its earlier position coming from the floor to the Baxi or could just be flow and return for the heating - either way a good plumber will be able to re-route.

Thanks for your replies, looks like it shouldn’t be too much of a problem then 🤞🏻