Drilling into lintel over window.

[chickenkeeper]

I have concrete lintels over the windows in my house, no plaster on em, just the bare concrete. How do I drill into them tidily without a) buggering up the drill, or b) going too far and compromising the structural strength of the thing. How deep inside the concrete will the rebar be? (ie how deep a hole would I have to be drilling to get into trouble?) If I borrow a SDS drill will I be indanger of going too far in? I've got about 15 curtain poles to put up so I'd like to get it right (particularly not to have the house fall down or cracks to appear if I break the lintel - you can't do much with cracks in ff brickwork.)

Cheers.

[chickenkeeper]

I have concrete lintels over the windows in my house, no plaster on em, just the bare concrete. How do I drill into them tidily without a) buggering up the drill, or b) going too far and compromising the structural strength of the thing. How deep inside the concrete will the rebar be? (ie how deep a hole would I have to be drilling to get into trouble?) If I borrow a SDS drill will I be indanger of going too far in? I've got about 15 curtain poles to put up so I'd like to get it right (particularly not to have the house fall down or cracks to appear if I break the lintel - you can't do much with cracks in ff brickwork.)

Cheers.

[nightjar]

I would Araldite them in place.

Colin Bignell

[Fishter]

I'm just about to do the same thing in my flat, but I can't believe Araldite will hold them up! Do you mean drill shallow holes, use short screws and araldite the screws in place?

[Rick]

On the ones I am fitting into my house, the bar is in the middle, the lintel is 4 inch wide, 3 tall.

Rick

[Rob Morley]

I'm sure he means glue the fittings to the wall without any other fixings - "Araldite, the bridge builders' adhesive"

[Mike]

You do not drill into lintels. This will weaken them and could start a crack. Put the curtain poles slightly higher up into the mortar just above the lintel if necessary.

[Mike Hibbert]

Have you thought about using a wooden baton which you could araldite to the lintel and then use a self tapping screw and more araldite to secure the pole support onto the baton. If you painted it to match the room it wouldn't look too bad!

Mike

[nightjar]

The lintel must be sound, to give a good base to glue to. The fittings must be chosen so that the adhesive is loaded in sheer and not subjected to a peel stress. You need to use the right Araldite - they make a whole range of industrail adhesives. Given all those factors, the fittings will probably fail before the adhesive does.

Colin Bignell

[Broadback]

SDS does mine.

[Mike]

Looks like the OPDM needs to create an Approved Document on mounting curtain poles. DO NOT DRILL INTO CONCRETE LINTELS !!!!!!!

[Magician]

DO NOT DRILL INTO CONCRETE LINTELS !!!!!!!

Why not? Common practice surely?

You would have to drill a hell of a lot of holes to weaken one - they have enourmous safety factors built in.

I've been doing it for 25 years & never seen a crack. Bear in mind the hole is only about an inch and a half deep. Drill through a lintel might be a different matter.

If it's that dangerous half the houses in the UK would have fallen down by now.

Dave

[Mike]

It's the hammer drilling that does the damage. They either fail then due to a crack appearing from top to bottom or never.

Has your BCO seem one of these ?

As you say there is a large safety margin, but even so I think most lintel manufacturers will say this is a no-no.