Replacing wooden sleeper lintel with internal wall issues.

Hello, hope someone can give me some tips.

In the 50's ex council house we have recently bought the previous owner had opened up the kitchen into a small pantry, toilet and passageway area (I think knocking down 3 closely built walls) and has used a lintel made from what seems to be a railway sleeper. The Lintel supports the floor above including the bathroom stud wall and beams in the loft.

We plan to remove the wooden lintel and fit it with a steel RSJ (so we can sell it with less trouble). According to building regs it will need to rest on 15 cm of solid wall however the internal wall that one end rests on is just under 15cm thick including plaster. Any idea's of a simple DIY solution to this problem? Or would I need to build up bricks from the old wall under the floor, which is only 1 brick wide anyway?

Thanks javascript:emoticon('')

A lintel joining a wall at 90 degrees will be expected to rest upon 100mm of masonry, i.e. a single brick wall thickness.

It is only lintels that are in-line that are expected to be more, i.e. 150mm and 200mm.

Thanks noseall

Replace the lintel with a pre-stressed concrete lintel then you will only need to add a plaster coat (or two) to marrying in to existing wall finishes.

Regards

Ok thanks will look into concrete lintels.

jocollett said:

We plan to remove the wooden lintel and fit it with a steel RSJ (so we can sell it with less trouble)

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If there are no signs of stress / failure in the wooden lintel there is no problem leaving it in-situ. The fact that it is a wooden lintel should not cause problems when you come to sell.

I thought that a lintel built without relevant consents would make it harder for prospective buyers to get a mortgage. I would much rather leave it insitu, the survey we had done prior to moving in suggested there was no structural failure. I'll investigate this too Thanks Hotrod, do you know where I could get information about this?

I spoke to building control this morning and since it's over a year since the lintel was installed they said there was nothing they could do to make us change it. They said for fire resistance reasons I should change it anyway however i couldn't help thinking that if a fire was strong enough to burn through the sleeper then there would be nothing left in the house for it to support anyway.