We moved into our house with the chimney breast bricked up and one of those electric wall mounted fireplaces installed. We want to open it up again so we have the alcove to give the room a bit more character. We have removed the plaster to see what we are working with and the lintel looks like it ends before the edge of the fireplace on the left hand side. Also, there is a gas pipe running across the middle, which we were told is capped off but we don't know where. Please help. We don't want to remove bricks only for the lintel to collapse and cause complete devastation. Also, upstairs the chimney breast has been converted to wardrobe space, I'm not sure if that makes a difference.

The gas pipe running through.

Don’t touch the gas pipe, get a gas safe plumber 

 

bricks can then be removed up to under the lintel 

hang on tho, is there anything actually supporting that lintel when the bricks are removed? Looks like it finishes a bit short to me

+1 for a gas safe engineer to move/cap that pipe, even if there is no lintel only a small triangle of bricks will fall by removing what you want, you can then put in your own lintel (at the height you want) and infill above it ?