Living room gas flue problems

[TheKeymeister]

In the process of doing a complete strip down on my house, it's a mid 70s 3 bed semi. The gas fire in the living room looked about the same sort of vintage so I've stripped it out in favour of an electric one, mainly for show as I've got central heating.

The flue is built into the party wall and comes out into the loft as a pipe which goes up to the highest point of the roof and into a 'special' ridge tile that looks like a vent.

It looks like over the years this flue has wreaked havoc with the rest of the wall, I assume it was leaking, as the mortar between the blocks has cracked and the plaster is all cracked, right on the route of this flue, on the ground floor and upstairs.

Have I got to do anything special to get rid of this flue? If I brick it up in the living room and cap it off in the loft, do I need to leave it vented? I'm hoping once it's been replastered it's going to hold together and not fall off again as someone has had a go at skimming it before, and then they clad it with some crappy wooden panelling instead lol. Any thoughts/suggestions?

View media item 59325 View media item 59326

 

[Murf520970]

if its a precast flue which i think it is it will be ok bricked up at the bottom & sealed at the top & no vents will be required

 

[TheKeymeister]

I will grab a picture tomorrow from upstairs where I've started pulling some plaster off, the bricks look different where the flue is if that helps

As the house has had cavity wall insulation not so long ago should I be looking at filling the flue with some insulating material before capping it?

 

[Newboy]

If you do remove the fire and hence make the flue redundant a couple of things to note;

1) Make sure that you seal the top and (especially) the bottom of the flue - in the event of a fire in the room with the flue the flue will act as a chimney and may cause the fire to flash into the roofspace. Try sealing with an intumescent expanding foam at both ends.

2) The 'pipe' in the loft connecting the flue to the ridge vent will almost certainly be made from asbestos cement with an asbestos fibre coupling to the flue - suitable precautions need to be taken before removing either. The asbestos cement flue pipe is quite easy to remove with suitable precautions but the asbestos fibre coupling can be bad news.

 

[TheKeymeister]

That's good advice, thanks a lot. There's a load of disposable asbestos removal suits at work so I'll use that as a precaution.

Here's a picture of upstairs, the plaster didn't survive very well, so if it was leaking into the main bedroom it can't have done the last owner any good...

View media item 59374