Removing a chimney breast

[macadonald]

Hi guys,

I live in a semi detached 1930's house in London. Half way through a complete renovation and am very keen to take out one of the 2 chimney breast internally without removing the loft section and external stack. The breast is about 1.5 m in the downstairs and upstairs room and then probably a little less than a meter in the loft.

What is the process for this? Will I get away using gallow brackets? Or do I have to go the full hog and get a structural engineer and steels?

If it is the steel route, I assume I can simply span this across the 3.5m room width resting on the outer 2 brick wall and the inner load bearing brick wall? For a suitable 3.5 m steel, can anyone give me a ball park price for the steel?

Surely a gallow with spannign steel would be sufficient. The local authority is Merton if that makes a dif.

It's also worth mentioning that the breast angles at about 45 deg as soon as it narrows in the loft, so it's not vertical weight from the loft upwards.

Any advice would be great. Broke to the bone, but desperately want to do this.

Thanks

 

[wavetrain]

Just corbel the stack brickwork and forget any support. With a 45 degree angle you describe, it would not worry me. But is that building regs legal?

However you may find the brickwork on the party wall that is revealed once the breasts are removed was not made well and you get sound transference problems from next door.
You won't know untill you remove a breast.

 

[foamit]

I would for peace of mind put in Gallow Brackets , for the price ,not worth the risk . of any problems . you may also need to get a party wall agreement drawn up. When i did one in the early 80 ,the remaining wall after I took out breast was very poor , involved a lot carefull cutting of bricks ,then wall was rendered with a strong concrete mix.

 

[Static]

Is the chimney on the party wall?