chimney breast

We opened up an old chimney, and have had a woodburner installed (with a flue) We have a damp patch on the back of the fireplace recess (about 4' above the hearthstone), which was there for some time before the burner install, and is still there some months afterwards. We find drips of water on...

Hi guys and gals, We moved into a property last May, and on the first day we saw a damp patch that had pulled the plaster away from the wall on the chimney breast in an upstairs bedroom. The wall seemed dry and there were signs of repair so we had the room full plastered and a damp sealant...

I bought a house a week or so back and after opening up the fire place, I noticed that there has been a back burner in there. I want to make the opening larger, but I'm not sure if it is ok to bash away some bricks or not. What do you think? I'm guessing that the space was bigger originally...

I am renovating a 100 year old stone cottage in Ireland. The property has not been lived in for about 5 years so there was a big condensation/damp problem. After pulling back some of the plasterboard (within an extension connected to the 100 year part) I could see that the base of the old stone...

Hi, I'm renovating my house and decided to replace the floor joists as they were bouncing. They were also rotten in my other room. I'm going to insulate in between them all and relay new floorboards. There was a lot of debris (sand, rubble etc) below the floor with I have cleared out. All the...

Help! Been in my house for 6 months now, guy that owned it before knocked out a supporting wall down stairs to open it up, stuck an RSJ in to support wall above, BUT he's put one rsj full width of the house, but hes sat it on another RSJ thats sitting on both the chimney stacks! Making both...

I've just had an old chimney breast opened up in the kitchen and am going to stick our cooker in there. As there is a clear route out I'd obviously like to vent an extractor up the old flue - which in itself is not a problem. The problem is down to the shape of the chimney. The flue feeds off...

Hi all, We recently had an old gas fire removed and the chimney opened up. We now just have an open fireplace which we have tiled and plan to just keep a few big candles etc in. I couldn’t decide whether to block off the chimney or just leave it open. However, the noisy wind and the old...

Hi, about 2 years ago we had the whole house re-plastered and painted when we moved in, however this one single patch has refused to dry and the paint has flaked off. It's on the left hand side of my fireplace and I haven't a clue what's causing it! Can anyone help identify it? It doesn't smell...