The back bedroom of a Kentish Town terrace is often barely wide enough for a single bed once the breast and its two alcoves are counted out. Losing it changes the room entirely. We prop, remove, set the steel that carries the retained stack and replaster, with over 30 years of hands-on experience behind every stage.
Chimney breasts in Kentish Town's period terraces
The terraces around Kentish Town almost all keep their original chimney breasts, and the flues are typically shared through the party wall with the house next door. Because a breast helps carry the masonry and stack above, removing one is never just knocking out brickwork. We start with a structural engineer's assessment of what the breast is supporting, floor by floor, before deciding how to hold up what stays.
Homeowners here usually remove the breast in a bedroom or reception while keeping the stack above, or take the lot out from ground to roof. Where the breast goes but the stack stays, we support the retained masonry on steel gallows brackets bolted into the party wall, or a beam where brackets are unsuitable. A stack is never left hanging unsupported over the room below.
Party wall and building control in NW5
Where an entire full-height stack is redundant, we often remove it completely and make the roof good with new rafters, felt, battens and matching tiles or slates, rather than leave dead weight and a damp-prone flue in the wall. Any flue we retain is capped with a vent and ventilated at the base so the redundant shaft cannot trap moisture and stain the finished plaster later on.
Because the stack sits within the shared party wall with the neighbour, removal and the fixing of gallows brackets are notifiable under the Party Wall Act, so you serve notice before work begins. The structural support is notifiable under the Building Regulations, and Camden Council's building control inspects and certifies it. We manage the engineer's calculations, safe removal and the making good as one job.
Aerials, dishes and what sits on the stack
The chimney stack is where a lot of things ended up over the years. Television aerials, satellite dishes and sometimes your neighbour's are lashed to it, and where the stack comes down above the roof all of that has to come off and be refitted elsewhere beforehand. It is a small item that stops a job dead if it is left until the day the scaffold goes up.
We check the roof before quoting, including whether a shared aerial serves flats in the building, which is common in the converted NW5 houses off Kentish Town Road. Lead flashings and any soakers around the stack come off carefully so the roof can be made good properly afterwards. If solar panels sit nearby, an electrician isolates them before anyone works over that part of the roof. None of it is difficult, but all of it needs arranging in advance, and a signal that stops working is the sort of thing a neighbour remembers.
- Skirting, cornice and picture rail matched back in
- Flue capping with ventilation to keep the stack dry
- Roof tiling, flashing and leadwork made good
- Bedroom breast removal to reclaim usable floor space
- Making good, plastering and reinstating the wall line
Trusted Chimney Breast Removal in Kentish Town
Kentish Town homeowners choose GS Renovation because we treat chimney breast removal as the structural job it is. You get an engineer-designed support solution, gallows brackets or a beam correctly fixed, the Party Wall Act and Camden building control handled end to end, and tidy working in an occupied NW5 home, finished and replastered, all backed by 30+ years.
- Rated 4.9 from 31 reviews on MyBuilder
- Registered in England, Companies House no. 14611254
- Gallows brackets fixed only into sound party wall brickwork
- Roof, flashing and leadwork made good where a stack comes down
- Clean, tidy and reliable tradespeople
- Aftercare and snagging support once the job is finished