Chimney removal - advice needed

[jpowell79]

Hi guys, looking for a bit of friendly advice on removing a chimney breast in the living room.

Have already had a steel beam fitted in the loft by a professional company to support the chimney breast, and I personally removed the section in the upstairs bedroom no problem, and was moving on to the living room section.

There were two sections of joist sitting on either side of the stack, so I propped each bit of joist on either side with some acro props, and purchased a a new 3.6m joist from TP and a pair of BM17 splice plates from joist-repair.co.uk with the intention of changing one section of the old joist to a longer bit so that it butted up nicely with the other section of joist on the other side of the chimney breast, then bolt them both together.

So I was all set, and had my plan, and starting smashing the stack down with an SDS hammer with chisel bit, and it was going pretty well, until I got about a third of the way down, and came across something I wasn't expecting.

On the "non-flue" side of the chimney breast (the wider part) it suddenly went into a cavity into next doors chimney....normally this wouldn't worry me too much as it would just mean bricking up that section so the wall stays flush.

But I definitely wasn't expecting to see a whole bunch of randomly (very badly) stacked breeze blocks! They're stacked so randomly, it almost looks like someones chucked them down the chimney breast and they've all piled up at the bottom!

But yet it can't be, as the top breeze block is almost straight, and has been mortared onto the bricks above it which make up the upstairs wall?

It's like someone has said "right, we need to chuck some breeze blocks down this hole till they reach 8ft, then stick one flat one on top of the lot, and then we can build a wall on top!"

I've attached some pics (also notice the remnants of a dodgy electric cable wired into the local double gang socket further along the wall....total cowboys!)

As you can see the breeze blocks are all over the place!

So now I'm wondering what to do. I stopped working as it totally threw me, and was weary of going any further in case it wasn't safe.

as you can see in the closer pic, the top breeze block has been mortared to the bricks above it, yet everything below has no mortar so is just randomly stacked up?

an even closer picture below...... the top breeze block nearest to me is on my side of the party wall, but there's also another one behind it on next-doors side of the party wall.

Do you think it would be ok to carry on smashing it down (obviously from the top, downwards) and then brick it up?

Anyone come across anything like this before?

Maybe I should try and embed a steel lintel into the brickwork above before going any further?

Any thoughts, suggestions?

 

[vinn]

Why dont you immediately give your neighbour's a head's up as to what you are doing and show them what you've revealed? Dont expose yourself to future claims for somehow damaging their property.
Have the neighbour's removed any part of their chimney breast?
Did the two houses used to be a single house?

The ceiling joists have not been trimmed around the chimney breast - instead the joists are resting on or in the c/breast brickwork.

Ground floor fire openings are usually centred in the face of the chimney breast.
Is there a basement?

Can you post pics of the steel lintel in the loft, and the old hearth area in the bedroom above?

FWIW: why dont you clear your furnishings, and cover your carpet before doing any more work.
And isolate and disconnect any cables or appliances.

 

[jpowell79]

Why dont you immediately give your neighbour's a head's up as to what you are doing and show them what you've revealed?

They are aware of the work and I got them to sign a party wall document before I got started. They are an elderly couple and the bloke hasn't been well the past few days, but yes I'll double check with them to see if they know anything. Unlikely though, as they would've most likely mentioned it when I told them I was knocking it down. Will have a chat though

Did the two houses used to be a single house?

Nope we're the end terrace of 4 houses

Is there a basement?

No basement, we have a concrete floor

Can you post pics of the steel lintel in the loft, and the old hearth area in the bedroom above?

Will see if i can find a pic of the bedroom before the chimney breast was removed but it was double skimmed holding a metal flue with no opening, so no reason to think why the one on the opposite site of the part wall was any different. Will double check with next door

FWIW: why dont you clear your furnishings, and cover your carpet before doing any more work.
And isolate and disconnect any cables or appliances.

I did .... the pic I took was taken 2 hours after tidying the room up and clearing all the rubble. Because I wasn't sure how to progress, I put the room back into a "liveable" state and plugged the electric fire back in (which I've never liked, but it at least warms the living room up during these colder months) and put the furniture back.

I can't imagine trying to take it down without the room being clear first, the room was a bomb-site!

 

[Ian H]

Bloody hell, if you didn't post the pics I would have thought you were making it up!!!

So are the bricks at the back actually the ones in your neighbours living room? At least you have a short cut to go and see them

 

[wessex101]

That is a good one. I suppose you could get a strongboy prop under the brickwork where you can see the row of headers then take out the jumble of blocks and build up on the party wall line to seal up the hole. You could use the blocks you take out of the void (only joking)

 

[^woody^]

If a party wall award is in place, get the surveyor back to instruct you what needs to be done. If not get one involved.

Presumably there is a building notice application with the council too, so they should be notified and invited to have a look.

Oh, and lol, wtf btw.

 

[wessex101]

Just for the devilment of disagreeing with Woody for a change.

OP said neighbour had signed a party wall document so assume they ascented to the notice and no surveyor was appointed. Best to keep it that way, last thing you need is some numpty on £150/hour demanding you get structural engineers on £100/hour to prepare a scheme to block up the opening.

As for Building Control, well technically yes but putting in the steel beam is probably about as much as they will be interested in. How you remove the now mostly non-loadbearing brickwork is fairly trivial. Call them out now and you will probably get a whole load of grief about the new section of party wall will have to comply with Part E and B and several other letters from the alphabet.

As long as OP is a good neighbour and does no damage or makes good any minor damage they do have the misfortune to create I would keep everything on a friendly low key footing. The fact that he stopped work as soon as he encountered that mess is a good sign, a lot of builders would have just cracked on oblivious to the potential damage they could be causing next door.

 

[wessex101]

Oops! It was so good I posted it twice.

 

[Doggit]

Hell, I'm just joining this post to see where it goes. Although as everything seem to be self supporting (well sort of) I'd be tempted to take down a few more bricks from the front to see what else develops. I suspect JPs flue goes up to the left, and the flue with the blocks is the neighbours, so it may just be a case of dismantling everything, and just bricking back up to rebuild the party wall.

 

[^woody^]

OP said neighbour had signed a party wall document

But on the face of it, there is already a trespass taking place, by virtue of the OP working across the boundary and on the neighbours property.

It does not need to be a party wall surveyor, but I would suggest that there needs to be some independent person looking after the interests of both parties.

 

[vinn]

OP,
My question ref the "old hearth" was for a pic of how it is now - but a pic of the bedroom c/breast prior to demolition or showing the "metal flue" might help?.
Still no pic of the loft steel?

With their permission, it might pay you to smoke test any of the neighbour's flues.
When smoke testing you carefully observe your c/breast side (from ground floor to loft c/breast) and observe which stack terminals the smoke leaves from.

The opening on the left is obviously the flue - it can be seen in the pic, and the brick compartment opening on the right is not nor ever has been a flue.

 

[jpowell79]

OP,
My question ref the "old hearth" was for a pic of how it is now - but a pic of the bedroom c/breast prior to demolition or showing the "metal flue" might help?.
Still no pic of the loft steel?

I'm still not entirely sure why it's relevant, but as I'm not a professional builder (and certainly not narrow-minded enough to ignore any free advice ) , I've uploaded before and after pics of the stack in the loft and the upstairs bedroom as I'm interested to see if it sheds any further light on this

I spoke with my neighbour when I got home from work and all he could tell me is that they still have their original back boiler which they still use today, and that he also presumed that the builders who build the houses back in the 60's most likely just chucked everything in there to save them carrying off site.

loft before:

loft after - steel beam fitted by a proper company and local council were notified and visited to inspect
(in case you were wondering, I've also been chasing in sky cables and aerial cables to the bedrooms, hence the mess and boards all over the place...it's funny how you feel the need to explain yourself to complete strangers! )

bedroom when we first moved into the house:

bedroom after I removed the stack - The side wall of the cupboard is now stud wall instead of the brickwork of the stack - which reminds me, I still need to fit a new door on the cupboard!

not sure if that sheds any further light?

 

[vinn]

OP,
I ask questions for a purpose.

Given whats shown, & given the neighbour's co-operative consent, then I guess its fine to demolish the remainder of your c/breast and make good the party wall.

 

[jpowell79]

ok well I carried on knocking it down, and just as I'd hoped, the cavity stopped halfway down

I carefully removed all the breeze blocks, and have carefully stacked them back up again in the cavity on my neighbours side. It's not going anywhere now.

Rather frustratingly, I couldn't get it finished last weekend, so I still have about 20% left to remove, but getting there! All that will be left for me to do is then brick up the cavity, and cover the whole lot with thistle hardwall. Hopefully will get the lot finished this weekend.

Which leads me to another question...... has anyone got any techniques for getting the wall nice and flat and level (approx 2-3 cm deeper than the walls either side of the chimney breast) so that when I apply the hardwall, it will come out at roughly the same level as the original plastered walls, ready for the plasterer.

I guess I could carry on with the SDS drill and chisel bit, slowly chipping away at all the little bits of brick that will be sticking out, but the drill is heavy and I reckon this way might take a couple of hours. Is there a quicker way of doing this kind of thing, or is there a special tool I could hire for the day?