Page 1 of 1

Removing a few bricks from a chimney breast?

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 12:16 pm
by chris1521
I want to countersink my TV bracket into the chimney breast it's mounted on.

There's no fire there, just the hole below where we have the TV mounted. The TV and bracket stick out a bit too far into the room.

Am I able to just remove a few bricks from the breast allowing me to countersink the TV bracket? I would only need to remove one / two bricks wide and two bricks deep.

Your thoughts and opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Removing a few bricks from a chimney breast?

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 8:56 pm
by Perry525
There is no reason why you should not do this.
The chimney is around 9 inches deep, so with bricks and plaster you should gain about 15 inches.
However, you must seal the top of the chimney to stop the rain and cold air dropping down. And seal off the chimney just above the set, to avoid soot dropping into the set.
Once this is all done, you then have the problem of a cold chimney in the middle of your room.
Because its cold a lot of the humidity in the room will find its way into the chimney breast.
Because the chimney hole is 9 inches wide a convection current will start up inside the chimney moving the heat and moisture from the room to the other side of the chimney.

Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2008 7:35 am
by thedoctor
Please see our projects on opening and closing chimneys. A chimney stack needs to remain ventilated at all times and removing sections of it at any time may well affect the integrity of the rest of the stack above it. Your stack is carrying weight of the stack above it right up to the pot on the roof so pulling it apart may not be a great idea until you have had it looked at by a pro.