[puzzler9]

I'm planning to demo a chimney that runs up the middle of the house and is unused. Previously have removed above the roof line and the second floor portions.

I'm going do to the first floor and hopefully basement at the same time. My issue that looking as best I can from the basement up a rafter beam appears to rest on the chimney. It's on the far side of course, so I can only see it from one spot.

Mapping out the 1st floor joists I believe a lally column, placed in the far corner where the chimney is now will hold that joist up. My neighbor doesn't have a chimney there and sure enough, there's a lally column right where I thought one needs to go.

The issue is getting it there. There's a possibility of a spot to put a temp jack post but I'm not sure, it would be very tight and not really near the edge of that beam. Just thinking as I go forward:

If I remove a section of the chimney, trying to split out the bricks, will half the chimney on the side hold the same weight the whole chimney on that side did? Asked another way, if a beam is resting on three feet of chimney (horizontally) will it do equally well on 1.5 feet, temporarily?

If this doesn't make sense I'll try to draw or picture or take photos. Thanks!

 

[ront02769]

Have only worked on a couple of chimneys from the ground up...it they are typically free standing and don't normally serve as supports for structural members of the building. Ron

 

[Aggie67]

Before you do anything - BE VERY CAREFUL. I had a client who went ahead with the exact sort of remodel you have in mind, without checking anything, and it ended up a near-disaster. The chimney did in fact support the second floor joists and the first floor joists. His contractor literally removed one half of the chimney brick (picture cutting the chimney in half from roof line down to basement slab, along the wide axis), and left basically a wall of brick hidden inside the plaster. His original goal was to use the new space for closets upstairs and a pantry off the first floor kitchen. He started getting cracks in the tile and bows in the walls and ceilings about two weeks after his contractor removed the chimney. When I finally got involved, the remaining brickwork was bowing into his dining room by almost two inches. The repair work required several walls to be stripped of plaster and lathe, and new posts and steel brackets to hold up the framing in the center of the house where the chimney once stood. Two sections of floor had to be rejacked and leveled as well. It was a shame, too. Beautiful old house. Turned out fine in the end, but the repair was major. And this wasn't the only time this ever happened to a client, either. I had another couple that ran into a similar but less-intrusive fiasco with a partially demo'd chimney in an old house.