Supprting a removed chimney brest

[coyaba]

I have recently bought a house which has a chimney brest in the bedroom, but has had it removed in the living room below. Is it necessary to have an RSJ beam put in or can something else be used as i don't want a massive steel beam to be in the living room?

[zmudge]

There are a number of solutions to your problem, but which is the most suitable for you it is not possible to say on AB. If the wrong one is selected, quite simply the whole chimney stack and any wall to which it is attached might fall in on you. You really should get a local Chartered Building Surveyor (not a builder) to investigate and make recommendations.

[spudqueen]

We had this problem in the first house we bought. The chimney had been removed from both the ground floor and first floor, but was still still standing in the loft and on the roof. We got a builder in to removed the chimney from the roof them Mr Spudqueen removed the chimney in the loft but as he took the last bricks off the loft floor the ceiling below gave way and we ended up having a chimney sized hole in that room for ages! His advice now is to get some supports and remove it from the top of the chimney down. Do get it done though as it is very dangerous to have an unsupported chimney like that. It can very easily collapse, and you don't want that.