Brickwork dropping above door opening.

[Jerry Built]

I've a job on a house where the brickwork is dropping above an aluminium door (with a window at each side) in a cavity wall. I assume there is a concrete lintel inside, but the door, which seems to have replaced a similar timber version on the outer skin, has no lintel above, just a plastic cover-strip glued on!! The opening is nine bricks long. The three courses above the door are coming down, above is currently OK by the look.

What sort of lintel can I put in to keep the bricks in place? There's no great load, and I don't want the lintel to be externally visible. A piece of galvanised angle-iron would do, but is there a "proper" lintel available for this> I'm going to knock out three or four courses above the doorway, using a strongboy or just an acro to hold up the courses above, put in the lintel, and brick up.

Any ideas?

J.

[Peter Taylor]

Concrete cavity wall lintels usually have a toe section which closes the cavity and wire wall ties cast in on the face of the toe which "support" the outer skin. It sounds like these ties have failed, which is quite common. The easiest method is to cut off the wall ties and maybe part of the concrete toe if necessary, and use a Catnic CTF5 Timber Frame lintel to support the outer skin. The lintel will not be visible and also acts a cavity tray dpc. The section is like this:

| \ \ |__

Peter