Stately Home Renovation, Oxfordshire

Property Description

Bruern Abbey is a baroque country house dating from 1720. More recently it had been used as a school before being purchased in 2013 by the new owner. The new owner then began a total renovation of the property to return it to a family home. This was a full stately home renovation project.

Problem

The flues and fireplaces within the property had not been used for a number of years, and therefore to ascertain their condition Turner Baker Ltd undertook smoke tests and CCTV inspections of 9 flues within the property.

The CCTV inspection and smoke test indicated that all nine of the flues leaked into the property and were therefore not safe to use. However the flues served a number of large fireplaces on all three floors of the property and as a result it was not possible to line the flues with conventional stainless steel flue liners, as this would have caused the fireplaces to spill.

Solution

After consultation with the client and main contractors it was decided to re-parge the flues using the Isokoat Process. This would maintain the existing flue sizes will re-sealing the flues, and therefore would not have any effect on the draw to the fireplaces.

Methodology

The work was undertaken over a period of 6 weeks whereby Turner Baker Ltd re-parged each individual flue. After each flue was completed it was tested and a new CCTV inspection undertaken to ensure that the flue walls were properly covered and re-sealed.