double glazing Lintel follow-up

[dave]

Just a follow-up on an earlier posting re double glazing...

Is it possible to tell just looking at the pic, if this ground floor wooden-framed window has/should have a lintel in there? Looks to me like a row of vertically placed bricks sitting atop the frame! (Well it IS, but does that mean the frame is taking all the weight above it!)

If it is not possible to tell, what is the easiest way to find out (which bricks to remove). An ascii side elevation would help if someone can draw me one. Thanks

lintel or not at

[Weatherlawyer]

bricks will be sitting on the shelf if you dig under them you might even see the lip. But I rather believe that the window is too far forward for that.

[Tony Bryer]

I don't recall the earlier post but a soldier course of bricks sitting straight on the frame is far from uncommon on pre-war houses. The window frames are basically 4x2 with the mullions at 2' centres so will hold up almost anything. Take the window away and the brickwork will probably stay put in the short term but then ....

[Dave Fawthrop]

|Just a follow-up on an earlier posting re double glazing... | |Is it possible to tell just looking at the pic, if this ground floor |wooden-framed window has/should have a lintel in there? Looks to me like a row |of vertically placed bricks sitting atop the frame! (Well it IS, but does that |mean the frame is taking all the weight above it!) | |If it is not possible to tell, what is the easiest way to find out (which bricks |to remove). An ascii side elevation would help if someone can draw me one.

Put a thin long masonry drill through the soldier bricks and see what it hits. The house looks *old* so there were no legally enforced standards when it was built, but the Victorians generally did things well. They generally built things to last 100 years. :-) The 100 years are now up. :-(

[dave]

1954. North facing wall. I believe Victoria had finished her reign then.

[Dave Fawthrop]

|On Fri, 10 Mar 2006 13:58:08 +0000, Dave Fawthrop | wrote: | |>On Fri, 10 Mar 2006 13:08:27 GMT, dave wrote: |>

|>|Just a follow-up on an earlier posting re double glazing... |>| |>|Is it possible to tell just looking at the pic, if this ground floor |>|wooden-framed window has/should have a lintel in there? Looks to me like a row |>|of vertically placed bricks sitting atop the frame! (Well it IS, but does that |>|mean the frame is taking all the weight above it!) |>| |>|If it is not possible to tell, what is the easiest way to find out (which bricks |>|to remove). An ascii side elevation would help if someone can draw me one. |>

|>Put a thin long masonry drill through the soldier bricks and see what it |>hits. |>The house looks *old* | | |1954. North facing wall. |I believe Victoria had finished her reign then.

Well at that date it should be properly linteled. If it were me I would still put a masonry drill through to see what there is there.

[Phil L]

There will probably be a concrete lintel in it, or possibly steel, the easiest way to tell is to drill a hole upwards in the head of the window reveal inside the house, as close to the frame as possible, if you hit concrete or steel you will soon know about it as the concrete lintels made around this era seem to me to be the strongest concrete I've ever encountered, if the drill bit goes straight through to the cavity above there's no lintel, a word to the wise here: if the drill goes through easy but it's still hitting cement, this will just be the mortar snots that have fallen down during building, a concrete lintel won't drill so easy, if at all with a cheapo drill.

HTH

[Phil L]

You'd be surprised, I know of at least two private housing estates where there are no lintels at all, one built late 60's the other early 70's.

[rob]

My old house built in the eary 60's had no lintles in the outside brickwork and wooden lintles in the inside supporting walls. When i had the windows replaced some movement in to brickwork was noticed above the bigger windows, but repointing sorted that. The new UPVC windows had to be specified with the mullions at 2' centres as Tony said above because the windows can end up with weight on them. Rob

[dave]

It certainly does. I'll give it a go over the weekend. I do remember when we had DG fitted to the front bays that the actual cavity was pretty narrow - only about a (pathetic) inch or so. If I drill as you suggest I may not hit the cavity anyway as is so narrow(?)

[Lobster]

Good idea - but do it through the mortar between the bricks so as not to bugger up a brick!

It's possible that there could just be a flat steel bar between the window frame and the bricks above, with no 'vertical' component, so that would not be detected using the above method - you cold try angling the drill downwards, I suppose, and don't let it emerge into the top of the window reveal inside the house! It's more likely that such a bar would be L-shaped section, ie, *with* the 'vertical' component.

David

[dave]

Wifey just came up with a good idea! Try the cable/metal detector. So I did. It beeps at a point 2" from the inside of the top of the wooden frame into the room. There is some kind of metal in there and at all point along the inside. I think if I drilled upwards (inside frame), within that 2" I wouldn't strike metal (not for at least an inch of so as the detector would pick it up.) Do you think this confirms a metal lintel? Hope it's not just the flat metal bar you mentioned.