Two concrete lintels for external wall??

[Simon75]

Hi, We are making a doorway from our kitchen wall through into an old coal shed, which will be made into another room. House walls are solid brick (9" i think), as is the coal shed....two storey house.

The opening is going to be about 1.3m, and we have been advised that x2 concrete lintels would suffice for the opening.

Is this correct? We had some work done internally a while back and the builder put in a steel lintel, although that was over a 3m span.

What are the main things to be aware of as i am a little wary as it is to all intents and purposes a main wall.

Thanks for any help!!

 

[RonnyRaygun]

Concrete lintels will be fine over that span. If only carrying a brick wall then they can be viewed as carrying a triangular load from above due to the arching effect of the brickwork. If the wall was random rubble you wouldn't get that arching effect and would probably need a deeper lintel.

Steel lintels would be a lot lighter to lift into place but then your builder would have to brick around the lintel, which he will avoid by using concrete.

That said, you can get precast concrete lintels that will span 3m, but they will be bloody heavy!

 

[Simon75]

thanks for that, wasn't sure as reading different posts you can get a bit confused!!

Appreciate your help