Removal of Kitchen Flue

[siballs]

Hi All,

First post for me, but long time reader of these forums. So I'm hopeful those of you who may know won't mind giving me their views.

The story, I'm renovating a 1950's 3 bed terrace house and have finally got to the kitchen. There is a flue in the kitchen which was capped when we moved in, which will take some valuable cupboard space in our new kitchen design and so we want to remove it. If you can see from the pictures, it essentially is a flue hanging there.

Now the detail, where you can see the brickwork is where there were 2 MDF boards used as a cheap cover - you can see expanding foam becuase it was used to fill what would have been the coal hatch through the wall. Every other coarse does tie in to the party wall, so it appears the flue supports itself. Which is probably why it hasn't collapsed when the previous owner took 6 courses off.

My query, do we think its safe currently? and is it going to hurt if i take down another 4 courses? I have my opinion, but the Mrs would rather we asked advice

Thank you in advance

Untitled

• siballs
• 2 Apr 2014
• 1

Untitled

• siballs
• 2 Apr 2014
• 1

Untitled

• siballs
• 2 Apr 2014
• 1

 

[Steve]

Shining a torch at it added nothing to the photos. Your camera flash would have been sufficient. In fact the photos are less clear from having a point of extreme brightness on them. And turn the resolution up on your camera to make the photos bigger.

Is this basically an old chimney which has been left hanging there? Can you see bricks at the bottom of it which are just held up by mortar joints? If so, this need attention. You would be as well removing the whole chimney up to the roof - this would be the most elegant solution.