The stack in an Oakwood house is heavier than it looks: two flues, a good depth of brickwork above the ceiling and often a hip to make good afterwards. GS Renovation removes breasts to an engineer's design, supporting whatever stays on a beam and padstones, and deals with the parts nobody photographs. The hearth, the flue and the roof.
Where the stack actually sits in an Oakwood house
Check this before assuming you have a party wall job. Many Oakwood semis follow the usual interwar arrangement with the flues gathered into the shared wall, but the detached houses here frequently carry the stack in a flank wall or on an internal spine, in which case no adjoining owner is involved and the whole thing sits under the Building Regulations alone. On a hipped roof the stack often breaks through close to the ridge, so taking it down above roof level means stripping tiles, cutting new hip battens and reforming the covering properly.
What stays behind decides the support. Remove the ground floor breast and keep the one above it along with the stack, and you have several tonnes of brickwork needing a permanent bearing rather than a prop and a hope. The engineer we appoint sizes a beam onto padstones cut into sound masonry either side. Gallows brackets still appear in older detail sheets, but since the local authority building control body withdrew its standard bracket detail in 2024 most inspectors want a beam, and a beam is what we price for.
The hearth, the flue and the floor in N14
The part that surprises people is at floor level. Under a 1930s fireplace there is a constructional hearth, a slab of concrete sitting proud in a suspended timber floor, and it does not lift out with a bolster and a good attitude. It comes out in pieces. What is left is a hole in the floor structure with a void beneath it, so new joists are trimmed in with proper bearing at the ends and the boards run through, otherwise the finished floor telegraphs exactly where the fire used to be.
Above it, any flue you keep has to be capped and vented at both ends, or moisture in the masonry has nowhere to go and salts push through the new plaster inside a couple of winters. We cap the pot with a vented terminal, or take the stack down entirely, and set an airbrick low on the retained breast. Enfield building control inspects the beam and its bearings before we close up. Removal is dusty work, so floors are sheeted, doorways zipped and debris carried straight out to the drive.
- Soot and debris contained with screens and sheeting
- Rubble bagged and carried out rather than dropped inside
- Steel beam support where gallows brackets are unsuitable
- Chimney breast removal on one floor or on every floor
- Hearth removal and floor structure reinstatement
Why Oakwood Homeowners Choose GS Renovation
Chimney breast removal is a structural job dressed up as a bit of extra floor area. We appoint the engineer, install a beam onto proper padstones rather than improvising brackets, deal with the hearth and the roof instead of leaving them for somebody else, and have Enfield building control certify the result. Tidy work in an occupied N14 home, with 30+ years of hands on experience behind it.
- Registered in England, Companies House no. 14611254
- Neighbours given notice before the noisy stages
- Site left safe and secure at the end of every day
- Gallows brackets fixed only into sound party wall brickwork
- Honest updates if a date or a detail has to move
- Party Wall Act notices served for stacks in a shared wall