No external lintel! Couple of ideas, - better ones?

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Close to finishing extension job. Needing removal of original front door+sidelight (now internal) to open up. 1972 standard brick house.

Having just taken the frame out, I was shocked to see no external lintel has been fitted! Door frame was holding up the external brickwork and was built in with the bricklaying. The Internal lintel turns out to be reinforced concrete. I was so much expecting a steel lintel to be present above the frame, I didn't check, and it never even occurred to me that any builder might do something this bad.

I hastily replaced the top frame member and jammed in several very tight props. Nothing seems to have moved above during the 20 minutes of shock before I got to this point. The opening is 1.7M wide in sound brickwork. The wall above has no openings at all up to house eaves, and there is lots of wall either side.

So having just poked about on Google, it seems quite common to find this crappy practice from the 1970's.

The "external" wall above and to the sides is now an internal wall to the new single storey (but full eaves height lean-to) extension. It will be dot and dabbed. This leaves me plenty of space to hide things behind, and it will never see any weather.

Potential fix
A) Bolt on a large steel plate to the "external" wall. I would consider perhaps 100mm x 10mm with chemical anchors bolts, one into each brick (opening is 7 bricks wide). Gives little lateral stiffness though.

B) Similar, but use large steel angle. (eg 100 x 75 x 10 sounds chunky to me, and I could get a bit from the steel stockholder). I would probably bolt on a temporary support plate above before taking out my props and digging out for the bearing supports, so more work. This could also be bolted in horizontally in a few spots. Better solution I guess.

Other opinions? Bearing in mind that "external" appearance is irellevant. Or am I advised to source a concrete lintel, pin and prop in more conventional way?
 
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Can you see what's up the cavity? There are several ways to fix external brickwork to the inside, not always involving a lintel?

Did you fit a cavity tray? If not then it's a bucket you'll be needing not a lintel :LOL:

:eek:
 
Retrospectively fitting an external lintel into a 1.7m opening is no great shakes.

It may even be possible to fit without propping, though a central needle is all that is necessary. A needle could be wedged onto the internal concrete lintel with a piece of 4"x 2" propping it.

If external appearance is not an issue then a 75mm x 100mm fella may be adequate or even a proprietary steel angle.

Otherwise you may need to fit a standard 100mm box.

Any unusual loads from above?

Any masonry above in shear or is it self arching?
 
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Hi Guys, thanks for the opinions.

No unusual loads. Here we are:
5025767078_6b57521e3e.jpg
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Lintel1 by mountaincarrot, on Flickr
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I'll probably get a steel angle in there then, save removing bricks from the top which might disurb things more. If the flat part is less than the full depth of the bricks, I should still be able to prop the brickwork from beneath along the inside edge while I shove the support in from the outside.

Rgds
 

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