We're in a Victorian terrace, which originally had fireplaces in the
front and back rooms downstairs. The back one was bricked up and
plastered/decorated over a long time ago, but the one in the front room
was kept as an open fire until we had a gas one installed a couple of
years ago.

Now SWMBO has decided that the fireplace in the back room should be
opened up as a cavity space, for displaying flowers, etc, or even just
for extra storage.

How would I go about doing this? Is it a big job? I presume there must
be some problems with the potential for gas to make its way up the
chimney breast of the front room and down into the back room. How would
I seal the cavity up?

Thanks in advance.

Tom.

GI Joe wrote:
We're in a Victorian terrace, which originally had fireplaces in the
front and back rooms downstairs. The back one was bricked up and
plastered/decorated over a long time ago, but the one in the front
room was kept as an open fire until we had a gas one installed a
couple of years ago.

Now SWMBO has decided that the fireplace in the back room should be
opened up as a cavity space, for displaying flowers, etc, or even just
for extra storage.

How would I go about doing this? Is it a big job? I presume there must
be some problems with the potential for gas to make its way up the
chimney breast of the front room and down into the back room. How
would I seal the cavity up?

Thanks in advance.

Tom.

You don't need to 'seal' the flue as such, gas or exhaust fumes can't come
back down because of the draw of the fire, IE air / gas / fumes naturally
flow up the chimney, it would have to be gale force winds to send it back
down and even then it would be so small as to be unnoticable.
You can build a 2X2 batten framework inside and plasterboard over the flue,
this will stop any soot falls from landing in your wife's flower
arrangements...you might get away with painting the brickwork, or if you
want it smooth, p-board over this too.

Hi,

There shouldnt be a problem with gasses as when you had the gas fire
installed in your front room a flue pipe would of been inserted into
your exsiting chimney to carry the gasses up and out? Also, hot gas
will rise and so wouldnt enter your other chimney anyway, if you think
back to how the chimneys were orginally used, both fireplaces would
have been open and used.

As for sealing the cavity in the back room, that woudl be down to
personal choice, I am considering doing a similar thing in my house,
with a similar set up as your house, we have opened up the fireplace in
the front room and reinstalled an original Victorian Fireplace in, and
in the back room we are going to open it up and just celan the
brickwork up and use it as a log store, which should look quite nice.
If you were thinking of something less rustic then I guess you could
use boarding or plasterboard to coevr the open brickwork and seal it
all.
GI Joe wrote:

We're in a Victorian terrace, which originally had fireplaces in the
front and back rooms downstairs. The back one was bricked up and
plastered/decorated over a long time ago, but the one in the front room
was kept as an open fire until we had a gas one installed a couple of
years ago.

Now SWMBO has decided that the fireplace in the back room should be
opened up as a cavity space, for displaying flowers, etc, or even just
for extra storage.

How would I go about doing this? Is it a big job? I presume there must
be some problems with the potential for gas to make its way up the
chimney breast of the front room and down into the back room. How would
I seal the cavity up?

Thanks in advance.

Tom.

Phil L wrote:
GI Joe wrote:
We're in a Victorian terrace, which originally had fireplaces in the
front and back rooms downstairs. The back one was bricked up and
plastered/decorated over a long time ago, but the one in the front
room was kept as an open fire until we had a gas one installed a
couple of years ago.

Now SWMBO has decided that the fireplace in the back room should be
opened up as a cavity space, for displaying flowers, etc, or even just
for extra storage.

How would I go about doing this? Is it a big job? I presume there must
be some problems with the potential for gas to make its way up the
chimney breast of the front room and down into the back room. How
would I seal the cavity up?

Thanks in advance.

Tom.

You don't need to 'seal' the flue as such, gas or exhaust fumes can't come
back down because of the draw of the fire, IE air / gas / fumes naturally
flow up the chimney, it would have to be gale force winds to send it back
down and even then it would be so small as to be unnoticable.
You can build a 2X2 batten framework inside and plasterboard over the flue,
this will stop any soot falls from landing in your wife's flower
arrangements...you might get away with painting the brickwork, or if you
want it smooth, p-board over this too.

that's almost exactly what I did.

I plan to put a widescreen TV* in the 1m x 1.1m space with a couple
of shelves (or one shelf and two drawers) under the TV for the amps,
boxes & assorted gubbins. I'll be using timberboard from travis perkins
for the woodwork and I'll be drilling through the sides of the chimbley
breast to run 240v & CT100 in behind the drawers & TV so for once
and for all I'll lose the 'spaghettti behind the AV kit' nightmare.


* as big a screen as I can get going no deeper than 48cm