We have a peninsula soffit in our kitchen that appears to be original to our house, which was built in 1964. We'd like to take this out, but have been wary about ripping into it. Yesterday we drilled an exploratory hole and found that the soffit is filled with vermiculite and insulation.

We believe that the stove used to be located under the soffit, due to it's shape and the fact that it has a sprinkler above where the stove would have went. So we're thinking the soffit was filled with insulation for fireproofing purposes.

The sprinkler is in the actual ceiling and doesn't appear to have any piping directly inside the soffit, as far as we can tell. The only electrical we're aware of in the soffit (so far) is a bucket light that we're planning to take out.

My question is this: is our guess about the function of the insulation likely to be accurate? Or could it be there for another reason?

We haven't delved deeply enough into the soffit yet to tell if there are other things lurking. My husband wants to put plastic sheeting up, wear a ventilator, and try to cut the whole thing out this weekend. I'm uncertain..