Chimney's are removed from the top down. They are VERY VERY heavy, and it's a LOT of work to remove. You will have to engage the services of a roofer to patch your roof, a mason to remove the chimney, and maybe even a GC to resupport your home. Very often in older homes the chimney is a load bearing member that roof joists and floor joists tie into. Taking them down is very involved and not at all DIYable for most.

live wire oak,
that's excellent information. i think if it is brick, we'll just find a way to make it fit into our kitchen design (found a picture of one here on this site)... if it is just duct work, i'm assuming we could possibly remove it.

thanks.

we have done this . we had to have 2 removed. One partial...didn't go thru the roof anymore and one that did. There was no structural support that had to be added but the MESS ...is incredible. we have an 1890 home and the amount of coal dust and debris was absolutely amazing. We had the same issue as you do in that the one chimney was right where we needed a doorway in the attic conversion. We had to have the roof patched where the one chimney went through. I didn't actually do the work but we sure had the mess that accompanied it. I hope others will chime in if they did the actual work. You might also post on the old house forum. Good luck to you. c

we had to line this one with a new chase...it is used in back to back rooms...

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this one also is in use in back to back rooms downstairs:

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make sure you seal the exposed brick with spray on poly to prevent the dust and debris from sifting off of the brick. I was the one that cleaned the kitchen brick after the contractor exposed it. We did not use a brick mason to remove the bricks but our GC was experienced in the work. Also we were creating a whole new space in the attic conversion so the tie ins that live wire mentioned were addressed in the remodel of the space. Hope the pics help as far as design issues. c

Regarding the mess - perhaps my memory is selective, but in comparison to the dust & mess created by all of other demolition, the chimney wasn't even close!

& BTW, another chimney AND a brick foundation was all removed when I first bought this house, & I re-used all that brick in a backyard patio. This chimney brick is stacked & waiting to complete that project :)

If you can possibly redo your plan to include a fireplace, and a table beside it, I do not think you will regret it. A fireplace is one of the most special things you can have in a kitchen, particularly in an old house.

Or, can you build a hearth around your range and use the chimeny to vent your hood?

We did a removal of one. I think there was a minimum of 3 ft of soot in the bottom. Dirty, smelly job but we wanted the space.

When I did mine, I had my Shop Vac next to me the whole time. There was a clean-out at the bottom, & I kept sucking out the crap as I could, plus I continually vaccumed from the top as I removed the bricks.

This really helped keep the dust down.

Thanks for the tips-- I got in touch with a highly recommended contractor and Operation Remove (or Expose) Chimney starts later this week. I'll post an update once the horror, er, project, is underway.

I am closing on a house next week. The house has a dormant chimney in the attic but it doesn't go all the way to the basement floor. It appears that it is putting pressure on the structure based on cracking in the walls. I am unsure how far it goes down; but if its just removing the bricks, does anyone see a need to hire a mason for the removal? Should I consult a structural engineer to assure I won't weaken the integrity of the house with its removal?

I would have hired a structural engineer before I made an offer on that house. Chimney's are VERY heavy, and if it isn't supported in the basement, you could have major structural damage from that. What type of disclosure did the previous homeowner have about the chimney? What did your home inspector say? (THey aren't structural engineers, but hopefully he noticed the issue.)

Stpaulrudy:
Call an engineer/architect. In fact, get a few opinions.

Unbelievable as it may sound, I understand it is not unheard of for people, even people who should have known better, to have removed chimneys from lower portions of houses, leaving thousands of pounds of weight hanging unsupported on the upper stories.

Many have been that way for many decades, so don't panic, but look into it.
It might not make your house fall in all at once, but consider the phrase used by my contractor about something else, "It's not consistent with the long-term structural integrity of the house."
Like carrying a too heavy load on your shoulders for a long time, it can make things go wrong all over, eventually.

Get expert in, get experts' thoughts and estimates on costs and then decide what needs to be done. Even if you do nothing, at least it's an informed nothing, not an ignorant nothing.

our GC was able to see that it was NOT tied into floor joists or anything structural. Since yours is just hanging there, you might start with a GC you trust and then bring in some sort of engineer.

Our chimney removal was not that bad-- under 2K including the dumpster and a very thorough, much-needed clean-up. Our GC would not have touched it if it had been tied in to something structural.

I had a masonry chimney removed because it was eating too much "prime kitchen real estate". Its only function was to vent a backup waterheater so I was able to powervent and get rid of it. It went from the basement through the roof. It was one of the few pieces of demolition I didn't do myself. As others have said, I think it's a job for the pro's, both to remove and to make sure it isn't load bearing or structurally necessary. It was significant added expense, but I don't have a big kitchen and I needed that space to make my design work. No regrets here.

Thanks for your feedback everybody. The house is a duplex (built in 1895) - so I will probably get in there and begin removing it before I have any tenants in the upper level. Live Wire Oak - It's in a great neighborhood of St. Paul, MN, is a Foreclosure, and had 5 offers on it in the first 48 hours so I had to move quickly on the place. Actually - the inspector and 2 previous contractors failed to recognize the free-standing chimney in the house. I may need to host a "brick carrying" party with my friends after closing. :)

Considered doing this in our kitchen renovation but the cost did not justify the usefulness of the space to us. Instead of jutting into the room at an annoying angle, the unused chimney is on the outside of the corner we needed for the range. I considered using the space to sink and vent the range, then decided it wasn't helpful since I wanted storage and prep space on both sides of the range. Wish we could have "moved" that space somewhere else to allow for a small pantry.

Two years later I can look at the space and wonder if a small range could indeed have been sunk into that opening -- allowing a small table in our small bungalow kitchen. Had we done this, that small table would have become the focus for the kitchen, friendly and useful, but cluttered and imposing if we had made sure that "table" allowed storage we would have given.

Not sure which decision would have been better for us in the long run but I do know cost was the deciding factor. So my thought is, if you can afford to do it right, claim that space now while you're ripping up everything in sight anyway. Renovation is a bear. You won't want to second guess that space later.

Wow...it's great to see what everyone is doing/has done.

Moonkat--you are my hero. I LOVE what you did!!

I got rid of my chimney about 2 years ago and it was one of the best decisions I've made in regards to the house. I have a small kitchen (maybe 10 x 10?) and the fridge was basically in the middle of it. Getting rid of the chimney meant we could build a "built in" cubby for the fridge and open the space in the rest of the kitchen. I've posted some photo links below.)

I agree with what most posters have said--esp regarding an engineer. We could also see from the attic that there was space all the way around so it wasn't holding anything. We had 2 people look at it just to triple check.

In terms of the process, it wasn't *nearly* as hard as ripping out my awful, awful kitchen tiles. :-( They were 18 x 18 and it took about 16 hours to get them all up. It was back breaking and mess and with none of the thrill of the chimney demo because they wouldn't "pop" up the way the bricks would "pop" off. :-)

(The key to that, if nobody has said it, is to place the chisel right at the mortar seam where it meets the brick. It worked 90% of the time. We used both electric and human powered tools and it moved amazingly quickly.)

Other thoughts...

The worst parts were (1) patching the roof---this job isn't bad **but** we were working in summer. It gave us a new esteem for roofers--it must have been 120 degrees up there. So, I'd say work in a season when it's cool, if you can. In a cooler season, this would have been easy.

(2) Dust. We put down drop cloths but not enough and although we hung plastic "drapes" dust really got everywhere. Keep in mind that we'd have to open the "drapes" every time we wheeled a new load of bricks outside so the dust in the air could float.

An old theater trick--have a spray bottle handy and spray the air. The dust settles.

And, maybe some kind of hepa filter.

Keep the air-con *off* so the dust doesn't get into the system. You might even cover vents.

Put a fan in any windows facing out so the dust gets sucked out.

Oh yea...buy the best air mask you can!

Next time I would probably *move* the furniture into other rooms.

All in all this wasn't that bad. The plaster was heavy as heck and poured into the wire so that was worse than the bricks themselves. That part I rather liked (but I'm weird.)

At the time, I didn't have a shopvac. I can see where that would be useful.

For anyone interested, here are some photos. Sorry I can't get live links but you can cut and paste. Some of the photos on this page are obviously staged, but if you scroll through, you can see the heavy plaster, chicken wire stuff, etc...as we go along. Sorry that I can't seem to aggregate them.

-->Old chimney behind the pot rack:

http://s77.photobucket.com/albums/j49/andi956/?action=view&current=IMG_1664.jpg

CHIMNEY GOING DOWN:
http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j49/andi956/IMG_3095.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j49/andi956/IMG_3098.jpg

GONE: http://s77.photobucket.com/albums/j49/andi956/?action=view&current=IMG_3100.jpg

http://s77.photobucket.com/albums/j49/andi956/?action=view&current=IMG_3099.jpg

(It was very tempting to keep the space open.)

NEW FRIDGE CUBBY:

http://s77.photobucket.com/albums/j49/andi956/?action=view&current=IMG_3120.jpg

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j49/andi956/IMG_3132.jpg

In the 2 years since I posted, the kitchen has had yet more remodeling. If you look at the album in general, you can see a side door, etc. I walled that up, put in cabs, moved the stove, cut a pass through into another wall, gutted the tile, added a dishwasher, added crown moulding, etc.
(Well, *I* didn't do all that...I needed help...much better at *destruction* than construction.)

Lastly, here's where we talked about it in 2006.

http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/remodel/msg071448024576.html

Good luck!!

Andi