At the weekend i knocked a hole through my kitchen wall for my cooker hood vent, it is the 5" rectangular type.
All looked fine when i first knocked it through as the brick above the gap in the inner skin of the wall appeared to be spanning the hole i had made, but on closer inspection, after some of the excessivley thick mortar layer had fallen away i discovered that it was infact unsupported at one end, missing the remaining section of brick below by a matter of millimeters.
The problem is that about three bricks above this is joist from the room above and all of the bricks in between seems to be layed one directly on top of the other with no interlocking with the brickwork either side(its a victorian terrace).
There is no movement at the moment as the force from above is going down through the supported side of the brick but i am worried over time that there will be a fulcruming (if thats a word) and the whole lot will loosen.
My question is, is there anything i can do about this without ripping out loads of the wall and propping up the ceiling to put in a lintel, i was thinking of something along the lines of some steel box section mortared in which could go round the ducting and support the brick above?
All looked fine when i first knocked it through as the brick above the gap in the inner skin of the wall appeared to be spanning the hole i had made, but on closer inspection, after some of the excessivley thick mortar layer had fallen away i discovered that it was infact unsupported at one end, missing the remaining section of brick below by a matter of millimeters.
The problem is that about three bricks above this is joist from the room above and all of the bricks in between seems to be layed one directly on top of the other with no interlocking with the brickwork either side(its a victorian terrace).
There is no movement at the moment as the force from above is going down through the supported side of the brick but i am worried over time that there will be a fulcruming (if thats a word) and the whole lot will loosen.
My question is, is there anything i can do about this without ripping out loads of the wall and propping up the ceiling to put in a lintel, i was thinking of something along the lines of some steel box section mortared in which could go round the ducting and support the brick above?