To close up fireplace or not to? Post Reply

[boonkoh]

I'm doing some renovations to my newly bought home at the moment, a two storey house.

We have a fireplace on the ground floor, and the chimney breast runs up into a first floor bedroom. We're looking to remove the chimney breast, as we plan to use that wall for a wall-to-wall wardrobe, and this would free up so much space.

We don't plan to use the fireplace at all, so this won't be an issue for us, but worried that if we come to sell the property in the future, it might be a deal-breaker?

Looking for opinions on how important a working fireplace is for you in your home, and whether it is a dealbreaker if a house doesn't have a working one!

[Jen66]

I think people do want period detail in period homes. I think taking chimney breasts out in kitchens and smaller bedrooms is fine but I would be disappointed to see one ripped out of a living room

[boonkoh]

Yeah, that's a good point. So keep the fireplace itself and the surround in the living room, even if its just for decoration, if the chimney breasts in the floors above are removed.

[dudette]

If your house is Victorian or Edwardian I’d say definitely keep the fireplace (and probably the chimney breast). If it’s 30s onwards I’m not sure it matters.

[TootSweep]

My vote goes to keeping the fireplace, but then I would say that - I'm a chimney sweep!

If you do remove it though, please make sure the builder makes adequate provision to support the chimney in the loft and the stack & pots on the roof. I'm sure it's obvious stuff, but it has neen known for people to remove the chimney breast in a room and forget about the massive weight above, with disasterous results.

This may even be a job for a structural engineer to be involved, and the building regs people from the local borough council.

Best of luck with this, Ian.

[pie81]

I'd be disappointed if there was no way to have a real or gas fire in a period house. So I would keep the chimneybreast.

You could still have your wall of clothes storage upstairs - have hanging space each side of the chimneybreast and put shallow shelves across the front of the chimneybreast (great place for shoes) so from the front it would just look like one run of wardrobes.