Double Glazing, Lintel, Sagging brickwork

[Zoolanda]

Hi all

Some advice would be very much appreciated.

I have just had my whole house double glazed and overall I am pleased with the job. When the owner of the company came round to measure up etc, he reccomended I have 2 lintels put in where it was obvious they were required (windows just had soldier course above). I had this done, no problem (by father) prior to the windows going in. The owner also mentioned that the kitchen window might need a lintel but said it should be ok and left it at that, he certainly didn't reccomend I put one in.

So now all the windows are done, the bricks above the kitchen window have dropped leaving a 2 inch gap about 4 courses up and are generally skew wiff, with evidence of the fitters trying to patch up. If left I think I will see a collapse.

Now my immediete reaction is the double glazing company should foot the bill for putting this right as they should have noticed the problem when removing the old window. However, they say I should sort it out and they will replace any trims I damage..................

Remediating this is certainly a day's work for my father, and with the potential of up to 12 courses coming out in a triangle. If I was a little old lady who didn't have a bricky father, what would the company do!?

Your opinions are sought...............

S.G

[TMC]

My thoughts are that if the bricks could drop 2 inches then the window was the wrong size in the first place

Or maybe the window was made to a size that assumed that you would be fitting a lintel that was 2 inches deep prior to the fitting being done, in which case they should not have attempted to fit it at all

Either way they have caused the problem and they should fix it

For a more professional opinion repost to Uk.legal

Tony

[Lobster]

I don't really have an answer for you but this seems to be par for the course for these double-glazing outfits. It's a dead easy job to whip out an old window and bung in a new uPVC one *provided* there's no problems with lintels etc - if new lintels are required it probably multiplies the time spent on the job (and cost/profit) several-fold.

I'm renovating a house (ex local authority) at the moment which is including replacing windows; the originals had concrete lintels on the inner leaf and nothing on the outer. So I'm making a case-by-case judgement as to whether to fit L-shaped steel lintels... so a small upstairs bathroom window which is only 0.5m wide and has only three brick courses above doesn't need one (IMHO) whereas the downstairs living room (2.8m wide) sure as hell does.

Interestingly the council are currently replacing all the windows on the LA-owned properties on the estate - the strategy (presumably agreed with the council) is that the uPVC cowboys come round and throw the new windows in; if it turns out that the brickwork collapses over some windows like yours, then a team of builders comes round a week or so later and installs lintels and makes good all the brickwork.

David