Chimney breast removed now to repair the wall?

[martinrose]

Hi All,

I recently had an upstairs chimney breast removed and steels fitted. ( ground floor had previously been removed with no steels)
We are now left with the stack in the loft joining the neighbours. We both still use part of the chimney for wood burner flues.

The wall now needs sorting out from the breast removal , there is a lot of damaged and half brick holes left.
Looks like a soft lime plaster (the property is 1800’s)

My initial thought was to use half/quarter bricks and sand and cement them in but dubious as the original stuff is lime.

Either side of the breast the wall at some point has had a heavy coat of sand cement and stainless mesh, would this be an option to cover the lot and bring it level?

Basically I want to get it to a point where it can be plastered or boarded then go from there.

Any tips appreciated

Thanks

 

[cdbe]

Chuck whatever you want in there, cement mortar is fine. Your biggest issue will be stopping soot coming through your plastered finish. Probably want something like foil backed plasterboard screwed to battens screwed to the wall.

 

[martinrose]

Is it worth putting spending time putting the half bricks back in or just fill the lot?

 

[cdbe]

I tend to fill big voids with bricks because I sand/cement render over them and you can only render in fairly thin layers or it slumps out.

 

[martinrose]

Fair point thanks

 

[mrrusty]

As @cdbe says, you have soot loaded bricks. If you just wet plaster over, it'll come through as salts, so boarding with a non-wet fixing to isolate is a good recommendation (i.e. not dabs). You could use foam adhesive, timber battens, or even top-hat metal studs.