My fireplace - to remove or not to remove?

sunama · 14 Apr 2006 at 16:35

So i will be completing the purchase of my first home, very soon.

I just wanted to get peoples' opinions on fireplaces.

The reception room has a chimney breast which protrudes from the wall and the place where the fire place will sit is currently empty. I have 3 options:

1. fill up the empty fireplace slot with bricks and plaster over it. This will still leave the protrusion where the chimney breast still exists.
2. install a fire place into the slot.
3. hack the entire chimney breast and plaster over the brick work, so that it no longer protrudes and gives me a nice flat wall with a little extra space where the chimney breast used to protrude into the reception room.

Personally i want to take option 3 as i would like a nice flat wall to work with. Is there any harm in this? From watching house decorating programs i notice that many people love fireplaces and spend heaps of cash on preserving them, so im just wondering if it would right for me to spend money to actually remove any evidence that a fireplace ever existed (and remove the option to have a fireplace installed at a later date, perhaps by the future owner)?

Reception room is on the ground floor.
Room size: 13'x13'

sunama · 14 Apr 2006 at 16:51

To give u a better idea of what i mean, here is a diagram (an example which i got from the net):

As 2 of u have mentioned in relation to removing the chimney breast (as shown in the diagram), would i necessarily need to remove the chimney breast both on the ground floor (reception room) AND the 1st floor?

I will be living on the ground floor and other people live on the 1st floor so i certainly wouldnt want to interfere with their part of the building.

Its tempting to remove the entire chimney breast as this gives me extra space and a nice clean flat wall.

ps. that picture is not my own fireplace, its just an example.

sunama · 14 Apr 2006 at 16:55

M0T said:
When we had our old house valued for my parents divorce the 2 period fireplaces added about £20,000 to the value of the house (According to all 3 of the estate agents).

DAMN! Thats a lot. I was worried that this would be the case. By removing the possibility of a fireplace, i will inadvertantly reduce the value of the property when it comes to selling in 5-10 yrs time.

If i cant brick up the fireplace and plaster over it, the only other way around this would be to board it up and paint over it, so when it comes time to sell, i can rip out the board and perhaps fit a fireplace in.

The problem is that i have no wish for a fire place as i wont be using it at all.
And if i end up spending £2k-£3k having one fitted, i would just feel that it were a waste of money and space.

sunama · 14 Apr 2006 at 16:58

Shimmyhill said:
Not sure you can just brick over and plaster a fireplace.

Certinally when my parents looked at this they would have to get it filled in and then some more ventilation put into the room. May be different as originally the fireplace had a back boiler attached.

As far as i remember there are building regs you have to follow. I would have a look into it just to make sure.

There is currently no boiler attached. In its current state its been boarded up and when i looked behind the board there is an empty slot to install a fireplace; nothing else.

sunama · 14 Apr 2006 at 17:11

I think i will abandon the chimney breast removal as i can see there being too much involved in carrying out the work.

Judging by the replies im getting, it would appear that it would be best to leave it boarded up, then paint over it. At the time of selling i can then remove the board and install a fireplace.

Does this sound like a good plan?

Can the fire place be bricked up or should i just use a wooden board?

sunama · 14 Apr 2006 at 17:35

Well, my original plan was to have gas central heating and radiators in every room in the house. In the autumn, when i have central heating installed, a gas fireplace will hardly ever get used.

Would it be more economical to have a gas fired fireplace instead? The bedroom already has an electric fireplace. So, if i go the central heating route, that fire place would need to be boarded up also.