Been exploring. Removed some of the plasterboard from one of the downstairs sitting rooms to reveal where the original fireplace was located. The flue is still open behind it and a man is coming in on Saturday to send a camera up for a looksie.
Upstairs is a second fireplace which looks to be immediately over the one below and so I'm not too sure how the flues go relative to each other. Hopefully the camera will reveal all.
The purpose of the camera was to determine where the flues went to see if we could get a new window opening and soil pipe through the East wall. But I got to thinking about this a bit more and came to the conclusion that, from that perspective, the camera is useless since it has no positioning information relative to the outside wall surfaces as it goes up/down. Since the downstairs fireplace is the only one that we are likely to want to use (if ever!) then it becomes a binary decision upstairs and easily resolved by taking a few stones out!
Which is what I've started to do.
That's not a birds nest but rodent. So far nothing to see but there are a lot of chinks there. I need a smoke bomb in the downstairs fireplace.
Then had a discussion with the builder of my plans for the upstairs floor and he pointed out one or two 'issues'. Removing the chipboard here is not a problem as that studding rests on the joists.
But here, the studding rests on the chipboard and it will be a right BA to shore it up.
And the studding for this corner also sits on the chipboard.
I need a Plan B.
Why not lay the floorboards directly on top of the chipboard, he suggested.
Well, there is a problem with the step at the threshold to the room. They cocked up putting in the joists upstairs. We think that they did this room by notching the 6x2's to sit one way in the RSJ. Then they realised that they'd cocked up the floor height out on the landing vis vis the level of the top stair. So they had to notch the 6x2's elsewhere upstairs to match the landing and top stair.
So I reasoned that adding floorboards in that room as he suggested would exacerbate the step problem.
"Not if you lay the landing floorboards on top of the chipboard there".
"But that will make the top stair level wrong" I countered.
And so, we're talking 20mm here so I've temporarily added some boards to the top stair to simulate the finished level and to be honest no-one has noticed the extra 20mm.
If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.