This wall in my kitchen was forming a larder cupboard and sort of 'lobby' area by the back door. To make the room a bit bigger, I thought I';d remove the wall and old lintels that formed the old doorways and open it right up - I've done simelar before in another house with no worries. It's a single storey extension, and the walls are definitely non-supporting - that's not the problem.
Mistake! The 'lintels' as I thought they would be have turned out to be one solid lintel going right across from one side to the other. Very over engineered considering it was only supporting two rows of bricks, and it's also absolutely massive - much larger than I was anticipating. (And no it definitely was not holding up the roof - the plasterboard ran over the top of the wall, so the wall was built after the main extension building was built.)
So is this lintel likely to be doing anything else other that supporting the brickwork that was above it i.e tieing the walls together for some reason? (it's a very narrow extension only about 6ft wide) or can it safely be removed? Or am I better off getting someone to inspect it before I try and hack it out?
If it can be removed, how the hell can I do it as it must have been put in as the extension was built or cast in place as it's solid one side to the other. I've got an angle grinder, but could you cut through something this big with a normal grinder? 0
I could leave it in place and box in around it, but it would ruin my plans for the kitchen if I had to do that so I'd really like to remove it if possible.
Any ideas?
Mike.
Mistake! The 'lintels' as I thought they would be have turned out to be one solid lintel going right across from one side to the other. Very over engineered considering it was only supporting two rows of bricks, and it's also absolutely massive - much larger than I was anticipating. (And no it definitely was not holding up the roof - the plasterboard ran over the top of the wall, so the wall was built after the main extension building was built.)
So is this lintel likely to be doing anything else other that supporting the brickwork that was above it i.e tieing the walls together for some reason? (it's a very narrow extension only about 6ft wide) or can it safely be removed? Or am I better off getting someone to inspect it before I try and hack it out?
If it can be removed, how the hell can I do it as it must have been put in as the extension was built or cast in place as it's solid one side to the other. I've got an angle grinder, but could you cut through something this big with a normal grinder? 0
I could leave it in place and box in around it, but it would ruin my plans for the kitchen if I had to do that so I'd really like to remove it if possible.
Any ideas?
Mike.