Havering is mostly 1930s semis and postwar estate houses, where stacks are shorter and lighter than in inner London terraces, plus larger detached properties that often have several. The support needed varies accordingly. A structural engineer calculates it for the house in question, and we install the steel and finish the room.
Chimney breasts in Havering's 1930s semis
Most of Havering's interwar homes were built with chimney breasts in the front reception and back kitchen, and in the borough's semi-detached houses those stacks and flues usually sit within the party wall shared with next door. Because the breast helps carry the masonry above, we begin every job with a structural engineer's assessment of exactly what the wall is holding before anything is taken out.
On the lower floors we support the retained stack with steel gallows brackets bolted into the party wall, or a small beam where the brackets are unsuitable for the loading. In taller houses, or where you want the full breast gone through both floors, we more often remove the whole stack and make the roof good, so nothing is ever left hanging unsupported.
Party wall and building control in RM postcodes
Because Havering's semis and terraces share a party wall with the neighbouring home, and the chimney stack usually sits within it, removing a breast or bolting on gallows brackets is notifiable under the Party Wall Act. You serve notice on the neighbour before work begins, so the shared wall is dealt with properly and there are no disputes later.
The structural support is controlled under the Building Regulations, and Havering Council's building control signs it off, no planning permission is needed for this internal work unless the house is listed. We manage the lot: the engineer's calculations, safe removal and propping, capping any redundant flue with ventilation against damp, and replastering so there is no trace the breast was there.
Postwar houses and their lighter flues
Havering is not all 1930s brick. The postwar estates around Harold Hill and the borough's later council-built housing often used precast concrete flue blocks or a slim brick stack rather than the deep breast of an interwar semi, and some have no true breast at all, only a shallow chimney block set against the wall. The support question in those houses is completely different, and in a fair number of cases far simpler.
It still has to be checked rather than assumed. We establish what the flue is built from, whether anything above bears on it, and whether a back boiler or gas fire was ever fitted, because the supply must be capped by a Gas Safe engineer before anything comes out. Where the block is genuinely non-structural, removal is quick. Where it turns out to be carrying part of the roof, the engineer designs support in the usual way.
When the wall is ready to decorate
New plaster over a removed breast is not ready for paint the moment it stops looking wet. It holds a lot of water, and even in a Havering house with the heating running it wants a proper stretch of time before it is dry through, longer in winter and longer again across a big wall in a detached property where two breasts have come out on the same elevation. Paint it early and the finish flakes.
The first coat should be a thinned mist coat of contract emulsion, which soaks in and gives the topcoats something to grip. Wallpaper wants longer still, and heavy vinyl paper hung on green plaster is the commonest reason a new wall ends up being stripped again. If the room has a textured ceiling running up to where the breast stood, mention it early, because matching an existing pattern is a different task from a flat patch.
- Ventilated caps and airbricks to disused flues
- Gallows bracket support for a retained stack above
- Soot and debris contained with screens and sheeting
- Steel beam support where gallows brackets are unsuitable
- Structural engineer's calculations arranged and followed
The GS Renovation Difference in Havering
Havering homeowners choose GS Renovation because we treat chimney breast removal as structural work, never a quick knock-out. You get an engineer-designed gallows-bracket or beam support and building control handled throughout, tidy working in an occupied home, and a fully certified result, backed by 30+ years across the borough's RM streets.
- Party Wall Act notices served for stacks in a shared wall
- Founder-led team with 30+ years of hands-on experience
- Site left safe and secure at the end of every day
- Photographs kept at each stage for your records
- Our own trades on site rather than a chain of subcontractors
- Hearth and floor structure reinstated where the breast is removed