course of bricks below the lintel in my fireplace

[colsaldo]

Hi,

I'm opening up my fireplace and have chipped away the plaster to define the lintel. I've also been trying to identify the old bricks and keep them in place. It looks like I have 2 courses of bricks below the lintel, and they look like the original ones (I've accidentally removed one (and a half!)).

Can I safely remove them? The lintel still seems too rest on enough brick with them gone.

I've enclosed a couple of pics to show what I mean, hope that helps!

Thanks!

Untitled

• colsaldo
• 24 Dec 2014
• 1

Untitled

• colsaldo
• 24 Dec 2014
• 1

 

[ree]

Yes, you can remove them safely.

 

[colsaldo]

I was unsure whether they were protecting the lintel from the heat or something. It puzzles me why the bricks were there and that they had no support.

Any idea what their original purpose is?

 

[tony1851]

They would have been put there at a later date when a new fire surround was fitted. Older houses often had quite tall fireplace openings to accommodate old-style fire surrounds. They would have reduced the height of the opening, perhaps in the 1950s? to suite a lower surround.

 

[colsaldo]

They would have been put there at a later date when a new fire surround was fitted. Older houses often had quite tall fireplace openings to accommodate old-style fire surrounds. They would have reduced the height of the opening, perhaps in the 1950s? to suite a lower surround.

The house was build in '62, and they neighbours say that the two courses of bricks formed the original opening. It seems strange that they'd have these unsupported rows of bricks (in the picture, you can see that the throat lintel is sitting on one of the bricks that I broke in half, on the right).

I'm sure, as said earlier, its safe to remove them and not have a new brick hat to wear. Id rather know their purpose though and why they didnt have their own support (i.e. another lintel)

Is that normal?

 

[tony1851]

The house was build in '62, and they neighbours say that the two courses of bricks formed the original opening.

In that case, it's possible that the builders built the taller openings initially, but then installed lower fire surrounds in each of the houses, necessitating reducing the openings?