"Martyn Driscoll" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:u4bNa.45383$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Ok, i'm going to keep checking out the prices of a structural engineer,
but
> in the mean time i've taken some close ups of the top of the chimney, my
> Girlfriend has also read your reply and now wants to take away the whole
> thing! I would really appreciate your opinion on this as i dont want to
get
> a builder out, tell him what to do and have the whole chimney come down on
> me in a years time! I want it to be super-supported!
>
> Heres the pics:
> http://www.ideapolis.plus.com/martyn/chimney1.jpg
> http://www.ideapolis.plus.com/martyn/chimney2.jpg
> http://www.ideapolis.plus.com/martyn/chimney3.jpg
> http://www.ideapolis.plus.com/martyn/chimney4.jpg
> http://www.ideapolis.plus.com/martyn/chimney5.jpg
> http://www.ideapolis.plus.com/martyn/chimney6.jpg
>
> Martyn D
>
>
>
Hi Again Martyn,
These give a better view of the site (the magic of digital technology eh).
The pictures show that the floor above is actually built around the breast,
and here's the but, this part of the chimney system is actually holding the
weight of the hearth and breast above. In your pictures it shows blocks
that stick out, on top of the brickwork you want to remove, and these will
have a quite substantial stone hearth on top of them. If you can get access
to the room above, you'll see that the hearth is actually very slightly
larger than the length and width of these blocks. The stone forms the whole
of the base for the fire above.
To replace the brickwork with some sort of cantilever bracket system to take
this weight is what you need, unless you can remove the whole lot right up
to the roof (expensive). It also shows that the old fires have had some
kind of back boiler heating system at some time in their life, so the breast
has been built out around the boiler and fire grate, therefore, it is
possible to remove the whole thing if you can get a builder to make good a
system of taking that weight above.
How the original system has been done is, they have taken the actual
chimney's in to the main wall and built out from there to form the breast on
each floor level. The breast creates a void for a thin back boiler and an
open fire front. Between the boiler and the fire they build a draw shelf
with fire brick, if you've found any they look a bit like a shrunken normal
bricks. The draw shelf has a damper plate, sometimes called a draw plate,
on the top which slides back and forward to cover either the fire in the
forward position or the boiler when it is pushed back.
The damper works by diverting the heat from the open fire down and out the
back of the fire, sucking it by the natural chimney effect, and draws the
heat over the boiler. When the boiler was hot enough the damper was pushed
back over the boiler and allowed the smoke and heat to be drawn directly up
the open chimney from the fire.
So if you can imagine what is involved, you'll see that the breast built
against the main wall is actually covering a hole further up the main wall
that forms the real chimney.
The problem is that the breast above is built in the same way and is using
your brickwork to support it on its way upwards toward the roof. So it is
possible, although I think could be costly, to remove the whole thing if the
floor above could be supported safely on your level.
Now planning permission and structural engineers will be able to give a lot
better advise on this than me, so I'd say you should go to a local builder
and tell them what you want, and see if any of them are competent enough to
say that they can do it. No reputable builder will say yes to the job
straight away unless you let them know that you know what is involved in
doing it.
Make sure you think about it before jumping in and getting stung with huge
expenses for not doing it the right way through a local authority recognised
builders firm. If they are well in with the authorities, they are more than
likely to get plans finalised on the basis of their reputation and
competency to do the work correctly.
I hope this has answered a bit more about the work involved, and I hope that
you do take the advice of a recognised engineer and not the word of a guy
who's only seen the pictures. Good Luck with it, both of you. :-))
---
BigWallop
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