Cottage door frame height adjustment

[Mia2023]

We're looking to buy a cottage however struggle with the height of the current doorways. All doorways are less than 6ft high, as seen in the picture. What would be the best course of action to raise all doorframes in the cottage? If they're load bearing, does that change much to the door frames? It may prevent us from buying it if we can't adjust them so definitely needing to research this first.

Any help is appreciated thank you.

 

[robinbanks]

What would be the best course of action to raise all doorframes in the cottage?

Depends what the walls are made of. Load bearing doesn't matter much if you're raising a lintel unless you're deleting so much masonry you imperil a supporting member landing above it.

If they're all solid walls it's going to be a bit tedious. I've often wondered if it's faster/easier in these situations to do away with acrows etc and just through-bolt a 4inch high length of 10mm plate steel either side of the wall, clear underneath it, lintel in and pack, then remove the plate and fill the holes..

Creative options such as a pointy arch are possible and might be easier from a self support point of view, but then you have a lot of bespoking to do for your doors and cases. In any case it's a lot of dust and mess, especially if you're (wet) cutting stone

How competent a DIYer are you? Or are you wanting to get someone in to do this? How clean and tidy do you want to keep the house? I'd personally crash bang wallop it before moving in and clean up rather than move all my precious stuff in and worry about keeping it clean

 

[Mia2023]

Thank you for your response. Fairly new at DIY personally. We don't personally care about how dirty the house will get if it resolves the issue.

 

[robinbanks]

There is nearly nothing that is impossible, given sufficient time and money. Does the house tick every other one of your boxes?

 

[Mia2023]

Okay thank you once again for your help! The house seemingly ticks a lot of boxes for us yes, we just haven't bought such an old property before so we're cautious!

 

[noseall]

What would be the best course of action to raise all doorframes in the cottage?

Prop and remove masonry and fit PCC lintels at 2.1m above FFL. Check there are no point loads directly above.

 

[robinbanks]

It might not even need support, depending on how good the masonry is. You can get a feel for that by removing it in an arch shape up to where you want the door head to be. If it's very crumbly/loose and built with random stone sizes, round stones etc then I'd support it; acrow with strongboy probably most convenient
If it's coursed stone with good mortar, for the width of a door's distance, support would be unnecessary

Do send us pics of every door you want to adjust and knock on the wall to assess if it is hollow or solid, passing that info along too. We should be able to advise on any that are more tricky. For example the one you've shown may well be supporting a roof carrying timber above the left side, but it seems far enough up that it wouldn't be overly concerning, and in any case the wall seems too slender to be load bearing from what it looks like in that pic

 

[Mia2023]

These are two other doors that I can see an image for from our viewing. These are downstairs and seem more complicated.

 

[tony1851]

If this building is listed, you need to be careful as to what you take on.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

That first door/photo looks straightforward, as there's just uninterrupted wall above it. Definitely prop, there's absolutely no benefit in risking not doing. You don't go driving without a seat belt just because you didn't crash yesterday.

In the room with the fridge, are the ceiling/beams adequately high?

When we were looking for houses I just discarded any with low beamed ceilings, I'm 6'+ and can't stand crawling around places with low ceilings. OK for popping into a pub, not OK to live there, you'd end up permanently curled up. I've seen people who walk around like this, I wonder if they live in cottages?

It will cost £1000s to fix, so if you really think the ceiling height is OK then make a low offer and explain why.

 

[robinbanks]

How tall are you, compared to a fridge freezer? I think they're typically around 5.5 to 6 foot which would mean that doorway in the room with the black beamed ceiling is already quite high?

The other two in the lower pic, the walls look thicker so likely masonry, possibly bearing a point load above and would hence need support. More investigation required on those. Not impossible for a careful DIYer though

 

[Mia2023]

Property confirmed to not be listed. I'm 5ft 6, but my husband is 6ft, 3 so we were trying to work out whether it would work for us both. We've recently been informed that the bathroom on the ground floor is only single skin of brick, so we may have complications already unfortunately with a mortgage provider.
Thank you for everyone's help! Much appreciated.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

I doubt the bathroom issue is a show-stopper even with a mortgage provided you have a reasonable deposit. But it would need some work, possibly replacement of the entire bathroom extension if it's really substandard.

Quaint cottagey houses seem like a lovely dream until you start thinking practically. There are likely to be other issues too, e.g. solid walls, inadequate insulation around those loft ceilings etc etc. You won't see oil paintings showing a boring standard brick shoe-box house but they can make a lot more sense in the real world.

 

[Mia2023]

It's my first cottage that we've considered, so definitely a whole new world haha! Thank you for your help.