A bit of re-modelling

[Johntheboy]

Hi,

Just to be clear from the outset, I'm not carrying out this work myself, I will have a professional builder come and do the work.

I'm currently in the process of buying a house, we plan to knock the kitchen and dining room into one large room.

With this I'm also thinking of taking out the chimney breast in the dining room as it's 450mm deep so would gain a good amount of space from this. I understand the basics that a structural engineer would need to give calculations for the steelwork which would go in place to support the chimney breast in the upper floor and loft.

For peace of mind has anyone had just the ground floor breast taken out before? My only worry is if it collapsed, I can't imagine anything worse than putting my mrs and family at risk because of it potentially falling through the house.

Many thanks for any advice.

 

[tony1851]

Millions - well, thousands - of people have done this with no problem.

The SE will design a suitable beam to span wall to wall to support the brickwork above. In fact, most of the chimney breast at the higher level will be self-supporting due to the corbelling-effect of brickwork. In practice, there will only be a few potentially loose bricks to support.