GS Renovation removes chimney breasts in Ware, on one floor or through the house, and supports whatever is left above. The support is designed by a structural engineer we appoint, using gallows brackets where the engineer and building control accept them, or a steel beam where they do not. Building control applications and inspections are coordinated for you.
A stack can be serving the house next door
Before a breast comes out, establish what the stack above it serves. No. 3 Baldock Street is Grade II listed and has a cruciform narrow brick chimneystack, set diagonally above a base with moulded cornice and offsets. The list description records that the same stack also serves No. 5. A stack shared between two addresses cannot be treated as yours alone to alter.
Older construction complicates it further. The Bluecoat Yard cottages are timber framed, plastered, pebbledashed and colourwashed, with an old tiled roof above a coved plastered eaves cornice and five red brick chimneys. Where a stack rises through a timber framed structure, the load path down to the ground runs through elements that are not masonry. The engineer traces that path before anything is cut.
The neighbourhood plan asks for chimneys to be retained
Chimneys are named in local policy, so removal is not purely a structural question. Ware Neighbourhood Plan Policy W2 asks development proposals to retain and where possible restore built historical features. The features it lists include original malting industry features and cowlings, street signs, iron railings, boundary walls, and other features such as windows and chimneys.
In practice that separates two different jobs. Taking out the breast inside a room, while the stack above roof level stays in place and is supported, is one thing. Taking the stack down and losing it from the roofline is another, and it is the one that engages the policy. We raise this at survey, so you know which conversation you are having with the council before work starts.
Who decides whether gallows brackets are acceptable
Building control does, working from the engineer's design. Building control for Ware is delivered by Hertfordshire Building Control Limited on behalf of East Herts District Council. East Herts states that the company is owned by East Herts Council along with seven other Hertfordshire local authorities. Whether gallows brackets are accepted turns on the individual case, and it is not our call to make.
So the sequence runs one way. The engineer inspects, specifies either brackets into sound brickwork or a steel beam on padstones, and the design goes to building control. We then build what has been approved, and keep the support open to view for the inspection. We make the application and book the inspections as part of the job.
- Rubble bagged and carried out rather than dropped inside
- Steel beam support where gallows brackets are unsuitable
- Bedroom breast removal to reclaim usable floor space
- Gallows bracket support for a retained stack above
- Chimney breast removal on one floor or on every floor
Why Choose GS Renovation in Ware
Ware homeowners choose GS Renovation because we do not decide the support method on site. The structural engineer we appoint specifies gallows brackets or a steel beam, and building control approves it before anything is cut. We separate the breast from the stack above, so you know what is being removed and what stays. We are fully insured, and quotations are free and without obligation.
- Honest updates if a date or a detail has to move
- Building control applications and inspections coordinated for you
- Free, no-obligation quotations
- Fully insured, with cover in place on every site
- Party Wall Act notices served for stacks in a shared wall
- Neighbours spoken to early when the stack is shared