Hello all,
I am currently gutting out my kitchen for a full refit. I have come across a potentially serious problem with regards to the lintel above my kitchen window.
While removing plasterboard, the bricks that were supporting the right hand side of the lintel came out with it. I did not realise that these were supporting the lintel at the time until I removed the plasterboard above the window which was covering the lintel soon after.
The reason why the bricks came out easily is because the original boiler which was installed many years ago (guessing at least 25years) was in that space, the only original bricks which was left were a thin sliver of breeze block no more than 1.5" wide, and the red brick on top. I don't know why they left such a big cavity but they did. The cavity was then filled in with new breeze blocks when I had a new boiler installed in the airing cupboard around 4 years ago. At the time of the latest boiler installation we had no idea of the precarious lintel situation, as it was covered up by plasterboard.
Once I realised what had happened I quickly set up a car jack and breeze block to support the lintel, the lintel hadn't dropped at all and to be fair seems fairly solid, but it is currently doing nothing to support the bricks above so needs to be fixed ASAP.
Is it simply a case of keeping it supported and replacing the bricks and mortar, and then once set it is safe to take the support out? I would rather not have to pay a small fortune for some structural engineer to come out, only to tell me that a builder needs to do what I could have done myself. It has already lasted this long with barely any support, so I'm confident it would be ok once bricked up. But I thought I would ask on here just incase there is something that I don't know about.
I have included a photo of its current state with the car jack in place lol, please ignore the bad wiring, that is what was left by the original boiler installation as well, and is part of the reason why I was removing all of the plasterboard in order to re-wire it properly, it seems that the original boiler engineer was a right cowboy.
I have also included a couple of drawings, just to give you a better idea of the layout of the lintel and bricks. The first one is how the bricks would have looked when the house was originally built, and the second one with the grey square shows the cavity left behind, which was filled in 4 years ago.
I am currently gutting out my kitchen for a full refit. I have come across a potentially serious problem with regards to the lintel above my kitchen window.
While removing plasterboard, the bricks that were supporting the right hand side of the lintel came out with it. I did not realise that these were supporting the lintel at the time until I removed the plasterboard above the window which was covering the lintel soon after.
The reason why the bricks came out easily is because the original boiler which was installed many years ago (guessing at least 25years) was in that space, the only original bricks which was left were a thin sliver of breeze block no more than 1.5" wide, and the red brick on top. I don't know why they left such a big cavity but they did. The cavity was then filled in with new breeze blocks when I had a new boiler installed in the airing cupboard around 4 years ago. At the time of the latest boiler installation we had no idea of the precarious lintel situation, as it was covered up by plasterboard.
Once I realised what had happened I quickly set up a car jack and breeze block to support the lintel, the lintel hadn't dropped at all and to be fair seems fairly solid, but it is currently doing nothing to support the bricks above so needs to be fixed ASAP.
Is it simply a case of keeping it supported and replacing the bricks and mortar, and then once set it is safe to take the support out? I would rather not have to pay a small fortune for some structural engineer to come out, only to tell me that a builder needs to do what I could have done myself. It has already lasted this long with barely any support, so I'm confident it would be ok once bricked up. But I thought I would ask on here just incase there is something that I don't know about.
I have included a photo of its current state with the car jack in place lol, please ignore the bad wiring, that is what was left by the original boiler installation as well, and is part of the reason why I was removing all of the plasterboard in order to re-wire it properly, it seems that the original boiler engineer was a right cowboy.
I have also included a couple of drawings, just to give you a better idea of the layout of the lintel and bricks. The first one is how the bricks would have looked when the house was originally built, and the second one with the grey square shows the cavity left behind, which was filled in 4 years ago.
