Old lintels with 100mm bearing?

[loply]

Hi folks,

I know nobody can give me a definitive answer to this but I was hoping to get some experienced opinions.

I'm in the process of buying a property which required a structural engineers report as it's non-conventional build.

Ironically, there are some conventional bits, and one particular part has a pre-cast concrete lintel spanning a window approx 1800 wide, the lintel bears on each side only about 100mm.

The S/E has commented in his report that this "needs to be" removed and replaced with a new lintel with more bearing. There is no relevant damage or warning signs, however, at some point in the past the lintel benefited from a central brick column approx 300 wide which presumably propped it up somewhat too, though it's been removed at some point.

I found his reaction odd as to my mind that's just the way things were done in the 40's/50's when this property was built, and nobody goes around replacing every single lintel? Am I wrong about that though?

In any case I could swap the lintel fairly easy, knock out a few bricks to make a bigger bearing etc, but I don't know if that would be daft and I should really just go argue with the S/E a bit?

Would appreciate any oppinions.

Cheers,
Rich

 

[tony1851]

Depends on the load it is carrying, but in a domestic situation, 100 would not be critical, particularly with brick rather than modern lightweight block, for instance.

What might be more of a problem for the lintel itself is the removal of the central pier.

 

[NS215]

with a span of 1800mm the lintel should have a bearing of at least 150mm, with the old pillar of 300mm in the middle, it would have meant two spans of 750mm where a 100mm bearing would have been sufficient as the lintel would have had support in the middle, do as the structural engineer says and get a longer lintel with a bigger bearing