I have recently removed loads of chimney breast from the ground and first floor in my property. On the first floor and in the loft, the breast wasn't tied into the party wall so it was very easy to remove. Downstairs the breast was tied in to the random rubble wall and removing it was a nightmare. Now I am left with a very tricky wall to repair and I have been scratching my ******* for weeks trying to figure out how I'm going to make it good. I don't want to remove any more of the stone because it is getting dangerously close to the neighbours side of the party wall. I also want to avoid building a stud wall in front of it and hiding it all that way. Worth mentioning that at the bottom, the central brick work is 150mm back from the plasterboard either side, at the top its 100mm. The rubble varies hugely and is truly all over the place. Not sure if you can properly see in the pics but its chaos. My ideas so far:
- Build a stud frame attached to the brick work in the middle section, screw some 18mm ply onto the studs to help span as much of the rubble wall as possible, before plaster boarding over the ply and glueing onto the remaining rubble with the sticky expanding foam.
- Repair the rubble wall as best as possible with broken bricks and morter, then build up layers of render until smooth to stick the pboard to.
- Build frame in the centre and then use metal lath to float over the stone which would then be rendered/plastered over.
None of these methods are exciting me. I am a carpenter and capable of quite a lot but this has (almost) got me beat. Thought I would reach out to the collective brain to see if we can, together, make good my crazy wall.
