Best tool to remove chimney breast

[diyer1519]

Hi

I'm planning to remove a chimney breast from my house. The plan is to do most of the work myself and get professional help with floors/ceilings/roof. There is a lot of brick to remove so I'm just wondering what will be the best tool to use. I guess my options are hammer and chisel, sds drill with chisel or an air chisel. I already have an sds drill but I don't have a compressor. Any ideas which tool would remove the brick quickest and easiest?

Thanks

 

[HERTS P&D]

You can't start at the bottom and work up!

The gallows brackets will need to be fitted first in the loft. Get the builder in first. Then you can do the donkey work of taking the rest down and loading the skip up.

It is a very dirty job.

Andy

 

[big-all]

dont forget building control and the party wall act iff you share the wall or stack with another house

 

[Nick1927]

You can't start at the bottom and work up!

The gallows brackets will need to be fitted first in the loft. Get the builder in first. Then you can do the donkey work of taking the rest down and loading the skip up.

It is a very dirty job.

Andy

Hi. Sorry to hijack this, but I find this interesting. I had a builder around recently because we are taking out a chimney breast in an upstairs bedroom, on a party wall. The chimney breast on the ground floor was removed by a previous owner. The neighbour on the other side of the wall has had the breast removed upstairs and downstairs. He doesn't know how it is supported on his side.

The builder has said he will put in gallows brackets. I asked him how he would do it, and was surprised when he said he'd start in the upstairs bedroom, and knock it out from the bottom. He said this would make it easier to knock out as the bricks would just tap out as they are not supported from underneath. When he finished knocking out the bricks downstairs, he would then put in the brackets to support the remaining chimney breast in the attic and the chimney stack.

I was surprised that he would leave the stack unsupported for such a ling time, and said I'd much rather it if he put in the bracket as soon as possible, and then knocked out the chimney breast out below the supports. He said it would be much harder to do it that way and too fiddly. I thought, "he's the builder, he knows best".

Reading your post has given me doubt again. Should he support the stack before removing the breast, or is he right and it's OK to knock it out first?