Lintel Beam Bending - Followup

This is an update to my previous post "Lentil Beam Above Garage is Bending". Since then, I've learn the correct spelling of lintel. I had some repairs done and still have a concern that it's not completely fixed. So, here's an overview of the issue and i'd appreciate any thoughts/comments/suggestions.

Problem: Started with a crack in the brick veneer (gable) above the garage door. After having a structural engineer look at the problem, he determined that the lintel was torking out and working away from the header, causing the bricks to actually move out a few mm and resulting in the large, growing crack. He figured that the builder did not put in lag bolts to attach the lintel to the header.

Fix:He recommended two things. First, to take some bricks out (every

6th brick) and go in and re-attach the lintel to the header with lag bolts. Second, he recommended building a secondary header up in the attic, behind the gable, with 1 1/8 inch plywood to attach all the studs to one another and take the pressure off of the center studs (where it was bending most) and distribute the weight to all the studs behind the gable. So, with a masonry's help, we jacked the lentil back up, and made the two recommended fixes. There actually were bolts attaching the lintel to the header, but they were relatively small and the holes were drilled below the centerline of the 3" angle iron. We put in much larger bolts nearer the top of the angle iron (lintel). When we let the jack out, the lintel barely moved.

My concern: Is that the brick veneer is not securely tied to the studs, therefore the work done in the attic of attaching all the studs to one another with overlapping plywood really won't affect the movement of the brick. Is that possible? Does the plywood work somehow increase the strength of my header? Any other issues/concerns you may have?

Reply to
Daniel Fenner
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Tell me if I am not reading it right: your lintel is only 3" high on the vertical leg? If so THAT is your problem. I don't know how wide your opening is but for an 8 foot opening I would not use less than a 4" x 6" x 3/8" thick angle iron. If your opening is 16 feet. you should be using an "I" beam with a plate welded on the bottom to form a lip for the bricks.

Reply to
EXT

Your suggestions are presumably for a lintel sized to carry the load of the brick veneer across the whole opening. However the OP's lintel is bolted to the wooden header across the opening. So the wooden header has the job of spanning the opening, and the lintel only has to span from bolt to bolt to transfer the brick veneer load to the wooden header.

Cheers, Wayne

Reply to
Wayne Whitney

The load path for the weight of the brick veneer is vertically down to the lintel, through the bolts to the wooden header, and then across via the header to the support posts on either side of the opening. So if the lintel is adequate to span the bolt-to-bolt spacing, and if the bolts are adequate to transfer the load to the wooden header, it all comes down to the strength of the wooden header. That is, the bricks don't need to be tied to the studs above the header, as far as their gravity load goes.

Now as to whether and how much installing plywood over the studs above the header (and presumably to the header itself) will strengthen it, that is a question I will have to pass on. But have you noticed any sagging of the wooden header? If not, there may not be a need to strengthen it.

Cheers, Wayne

Reply to
Wayne Whitney

Wayne, thanks for both of your responses. Makes a lot of sense, which is sometimes hard to come by. I can't actually see the wooden header, so I'm not sure if it's sagging. As far as the plywood spanning all of the studs above the header, it's not clear to me how the studs are attached to the header. It's my understanding (which may be incorrect) that the studs above the header are simply setting on the header, and not actually attached to it. If that's the case, it's not clear to me how making all of the studs one unit, by connecting them with plywood, would strengthen the header. Now, if the bricks were truly attached to the studs and, as they moved the studs would move, then making all the studs one unit and distributing the weight to the outside would definitely work. It's just not clear to me how tying the studs together makes the header stronger. Is the woodedn header somehow screwed in to each of the studs???

Reply to
Daniel Fenner

That's what my brick mason said too. Seems a bit small, but I called the city and the building Code is for the size of the header (like Wayne suggests below) and not for the lintel. However, there is no code for how large the lagger bolts should be, where they should be screwed in (not at the bottom of the verticle leg!!!) and how far you should span them. Thanks for your response!!!

Reply to
Daniel Fenner

The vertical studs are nailed to a horizontal 2 x4 which is nailed to the header.

Reply to
Art

EXT....thanks for your comments. I just looked in to the BOCA building code for Tulsa in 1999 (when my house was built) and the lintel should have be sized at 6" tall by 4" wide, not 3 inches tall! By the way, after screwing the lentil back to verticle with new lag bolts, the existing bolts had at least a 4 mm space between them and the verticle leg. We removed the bolts we could get to and they each has a significant bend to them. Seems to me that if a 6" verticle leg was in place the beam would not have torked out like this one did. Seems like my builder is liable for this one. Any thoughts?

Reply to
Daniel Fenner

My understanding is that the plywood does nothing to strengthen the header itself. Its purpose is to transfer the load of the studs over the header to the wall sections alongside the header. This removes this part of the load from the header so it is better able to support the load of the brickwork.

Don Young

Reply to
Don Young

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