How to remove chimney breast and hearth, joists extended etc!

[Welch38]

Hi everyone!

I’m in the process of gutting a property. It’s a 3 story Victorian house converted into 3 flats, I am working on flat 2 of 3. The chimney in flat above has been removed, but the hearth wasn’t removed.

I need help working out how to remove the concrete hearth without it dropping down in one piece and squashing me as I can’t work from above,

And I also need help with how I can extend the joists where the concrete hearth is in the ceiling so that the structure is sound.

Please please give me any advice you can!

Thanks in advance!!

 

[Deleted member 174758]

The chimney in flat above has been removed, but the hearth wasn’t removed.

I need help working out how to remove the concrete hearth without it dropping down in one piece and squashing me as I can’t work from above

You need to build a well supported planked crash deck just below the concrete and remove the concrete by chipping it away. Even if working from above you would still need a crash deck. This may require a temporary frame work made up from 3 x 2s screwed together to make 4 x 3s, and with diagonal bracing. It's the sort of job I'd do with scaffolding or a scaffolding tower and planking, the idea being to limit the distance the waste material drops to a foot or two

...I also need help with how I can extend the joists where the concrete hearth is in the ceiling so that the structure

You need to set your Acrows just over a metre back from the ends of the joists so that you can get a decent length of extension in there, with at least two coach bolts and more than 600mm of overlap (ideally a metre). New joist ends should be connected to a ledger at the wall using twist nails, the ledger to be Rawl bolted ot resin anchored to the masonry

 

[cdbe]

Why bother extending the joists when the opening is already trimmed. Just fill in and board over. Those old joists can take it. I always prefer when the joists run that way, if they go the other way you usually have a big sag on the one they notch for the hearth.