[Lauren]

Question: Hello, I have an awful brick chimney breast in my lounge which I'm 95% certain is false. 1920 house, remodelled 1979-80 ish. It seems to stop at the ceiling, doesn't key into the wall behind and there is nothing upstairs in the bedroom other than a hearthstone. I haven't lifted the boards upstairs to look at the joists though. The flues appear to be in the wall behind it - the stack is the same width as this wall (as far as I can tell, I've not climbed on the roof with a tape measure!) We chipped out a brick at the top and there is a gap and then old brickwork inside, so it looks like it's been "skinned" with bricks and enlarged. I'd like to get this nasty modern stuff down and restore the original, eventually to have a log burner (probably) but not straight away. What sort of tradesperson do I need to get this sorted? I'm struggling to find anyone. South Cheshire / North Shropshire borders. There's a nasty old LPG gas fire in there too which needs to go in the bin.
Audlem

[Gareth Styles]

Hi

a roofer can take down your chimney and tell you if it’s a false chimney in my opinion 1920s would have been used for something -

it could be rebuilt but would need a liner if your installing a wood burner and that needs to be a heatas engineer installer

Gareth

[Brenton]

If you do decide to go ahead your first hurdle will be to find similar age and type of brick as your bricky will tell you soft bricks with soft brick not mixed with modern you will need a little knowledge of how a lime mortar works to enable soft brick to breath lime allows that secondly ,you could go ahead and remove the breast if there's nothing on second floor that's only if your joists are running in the correct direction if there not you may have a carpentry issue but good luck sounds like a 3,4 k job