Postwar infill along New Cross Road has no chimneys, so this is work for the Victorian terraces on the streets climbing towards Telegraph Hill Park. Those share their stacks with next door, which means a party wall notice as well as building regulations approval. We handle both, then prop, remove and support on steel.
Removing a chimney breast in New Cross terraces
Most New Cross terraces still carry their original chimney breasts in the reception rooms and bedrooms, projecting into the space and eating into usable floor area. Because a breast helps carry the masonry stack above it, you cannot simply knock it out. We begin every removal with a structural engineer assessing what the breast supports and how the stack will be held once it is gone.
On the lower floors we typically support the retained stack with steel gallows brackets bolted into the party wall, or a beam where the brackets are unsuitable. In houses where the stack runs full height and is redundant, it is often cleaner to remove the whole stack and make the roof good. Whichever route the engineer specifies, the stack is never left unsupported.
Party wall and building control in SE14
New Cross terraces are tightly built, so the chimney stack almost always sits within the party wall shared with the house next door. Removing the breast, or bolting gallows brackets into that shared wall, makes the work notifiable under the Party Wall Act, and you serve notice on your neighbour before starting. The structural support is notifiable under building regulations.
Lewisham Council's building control, or an approved inspector, inspects the support and signs off the finished work under the Building Regulations. This is not a planning matter for internal removal. We manage the whole job: the engineer's design, safe staged removal and propping, capping any redundant flue with ventilation to prevent damp, and replastering so no trace of the breast remains.
Checking what remains of the stack
On the streets climbing towards Telegraph Hill the first task is establishing what is actually still there. Many of these terraces had their stacks taken down to roof level years ago, leaving a length of redundant brickwork sitting in the loft supported on very little. Others still carry full stacks and pots. The two situations lead to completely different designs, so we go into the loft before anything else is considered.
We also check the things that change the method. Flue liners are rare in houses of this age, so the flue is likely to be parged and fragile. Damp staining on the breast points to a failed cap or missing flaunching. And we look at whether the neighbouring house has already removed its side, because a shared stack with one half gone behaves very differently from one that is still intact. The findings go to the engineer with photographs, so the design reflects the house rather than a typical terrace of its date.
Doing the work in a let house
A good number of SE14 houses are let, often to students at Goldsmiths, and that changes the planning more than the building. Work of this kind is genuinely disruptive to anyone living in the room, so the practical window is the void between tenancies rather than the middle of a term. Landlords who plan a summer changeover get a clear house, an empty room and no need to negotiate access, which usually makes for a faster job and a better finish than working around occupied bedrooms.
If the property is occupied, tenants are entitled to reasonable notice and a realistic account of what the week will be like. We would rather give that honestly at the start than have someone discover it on the first morning. For an HMO the room is out of use for the duration, so the letting has to allow for it. We keep the completion certificate and the engineer's details together for your file, because that is the paperwork a lender or a buyer will ask about later, not the invoice.
- Rubble bagged and carried out rather than dropped inside
- Ground floor removal with the upper stack fully supported
- Chimney breast removal on one floor or on every floor
- Full chimney stack removal and roof making good
- Ceiling and joist support where the breast carried them
Trusted Chimney Breast Removal in New Cross
New Cross homeowners choose GS Renovation because we treat chimney breast removal as the structural job it is. You get an engineer-designed support solution using gallows brackets or a beam and Lewisham building control handled end to end, tidy working in an occupied SE14 home, and a certified, fully squared-off result, backed by 30+ years across South East London.
- Gallows brackets fixed only into sound party wall brickwork
- Hearth and floor structure reinstated where the breast is removed
- Registered in England, Companies House no. 14611254
- Rubble bagged and carried out, not tipped into the room below
- Building control applications and inspections coordinated for you
- Our own trades on site rather than a chain of subcontractors