Bricking a window up - Help if possible

[jamesbates87]

Hey guys and girls,

I was hoping for a little bit of help in regards to a garage window that we are looking at bricking up and getting rid of.

I am happy with the bricking and doing that, but I am a little lost with the bricks at the top which I guess is where the lintel is.

Is it best to remove these bricks and lintel? Or should I leave it there and just brick where the window was?

Any help or advice would be very much grateful.

Thank you

 

[Ian H]

If you think the lintel could corrode and swell then it's best off gone. Easiest is to leave it in.

 

[stuart45]

You might have a concrete lintel on the inner skin, and nothing but the frame holding the outer skin, with a lead or similar tray above the soldier course.
The lintel could be 6x6 inches so it needs a tray as it bridges the cavity.

 

[jamesbates87]

Thanks for the replies guys, that's brilliant!!

James

 

[^woody^]

Leave them in. You're going to have a window-shaped patch of new bricks regardless, so it wont matter visually as well as structurally.

 

[stuart45]

You could set the new brickwork back slightly and make a feature as some new builds do to copy the old window tax ones.

 

[Doggit]

Can you get the same bricks, and can you take out the half bricks, and the knit the new ones in; if you do that, then I'd take out the soldier course. If you use an angle grinder to take out the solider course, then you might get away without using a strong boy to hold up the centre of the upper courses.

 

[^woody^]

It's an old garage.

 

[Ian H]

With a bathroom on top.

 

[^woody^]

OK Sherlock.

Heathers and bonded in it is then.

Soldier removal optional. If you take out about 700mm of the soldiers at a time and lay the bricks, then you wont need to support the brickwork above