Replacing wooden garage windows with uPVC - install lintels?

[snapd]

Hi,

I have four wooden garage windows which are rotten and I would like to replace with uPVC (the opposite side of the garage shown in the picture has one window).

Each window is 1.8m in width and 1.3m in height.

The installer has suggested either:

• Replacing with steel reinforced uPVC and leaving the soldier course as is
  
• Or, which he didn't think was necessary and was quoted at my request, replace the soldier course shown with 80mm concrete lintels and increase the window height slightly

On one hand, he did not think the lintels were necessary and I like the decorative effect of the soldier course. On the other, I don't want any to encounter any structural problems with the garage later on.

What do you think?

 

[rougharsedbrickie]

L shaped steel lintel

 

[snapd]

Thanks for your reply, will take a look at those!

 

[^woody^]

Even if the plastic frames are reinforced, the greater thermal expansion and greater ability to transfer vibrations, means that brickwork resting on plastic frames soon gets rattled loose.

 

[cdbe]

Second vote for L shaped single skin lintels, or even suitably sized angle iron (pretty much the same thing). My focus, to make the job a lot easier and cheaper and assuming the soldier courses are intact, would be on propping them during the course of the work so they don't drop and need rebuilding.

 

[snapd]

L shaped steel lintel

Second vote for L shaped single skin lintels

I have spoken with the installer - giving him this link https://www.lintels.co.uk/angle-lintels-100010041-0000 (I think I have the right product type?) - and he's said:

"Yes they would work well Only snag is it is a engineering nightmare to try install them while brick header course is in As there is no way of supporting Brickwork when trying to put them in from the inside Brick header would collapse as I have to drill out mortar each side To allow 150mm lintel overhang each side"

Is it an "engineering nightmare"?

 

[rougharsedbrickie]

Find another installer, the one you have isn’t very good. Retro fitting a lintel a common construction process not an engineering nightmare at all

 

[^woody^]

Is it an "engineering nightmare"?

No.

After taking them down and installing the lintel, the soldiers would be put back in going from one end of the lintel so that each soldier can be put in, up, and along, and then pointed under the plate. The difficult one is the last one, and for that, two course of the "normal" bricks above the bearing could be removed, as they would be easier to put back in afterwards (top one first).

OK, the window installer may not have a clue, but if he employed proper bricklayers, even rough-arsed ones, they might.

 

[rougharsedbrickie]

As there is no way of supporting Brickwork when trying to put them in from the inside Brick header would collapse as I have to drill out mortar each side To allow 150mm lintel overhang each side"?

I could suggest you tell your installer to drill the joints before removing the window, but really if you need to tell him how to do the job why are you paying him ?