No Lintel - Row of vertical bricks above window frame

There is much popular misunderstanding around lintels and brickwork.

Firstly there are many houses with no support at all for bricks above openings, and in almost all cases it hasnt gone anywhere. Brickwork over small openings is almost - but not quite - completely self supporting. Most unsupported brickwork above is completely self supporting, but there will be a triangle of bricks that is only 99.9% self supporting, and can very occasionally fail. In the cases where it does fail, one almost always sees telltale cracks for a while before any fall could occur, so even failing brickwork is not likely to drop.

The worst example I saw was a large unsupported opening of IIRC somewhere around 10 feet, with only the slimmest of pillars at each end, on 4" walls. These 9" pillars gave little sideways restraint, the

Usually soldier courses have hidden support. If they dont, the risk is tiny, but not zero. The risk then is from needing to repair, and from falling bricks, not structural collapse, as it is only a triangle of bricks that falls in the worst case.

Window frames used to support brickwork are not uncommon, so its possible.

When no lintel is visible, there is normally some form of support present.

NT

Are you sure the bricks are vertical? More likeley they will be a very shallow arch. Look for the spacing between the vertical joints increasing towards the top, or for the gap between the arch and the course above decreasing towards the middle.

The interior walls on my house, c. 1900, use arches for doors with a rise of little more than an inch over the door width (The exterior is stone). The brickwork was quite stable with the standards removed.

I think it's pretty common. If the bricks and mortar are in good condition and it is indeed an arch then it shouldn't put any load on the window.

soldier course in front of a lintol, usually a prestressed conctrete jobbie.

FWIW a BCO passed a 3' 6" newly cut door opening in a 100 year old 9" wall which was supported by 2 lenghts of 4" x 2" just to be on the safe side

This talk of support has got me wondering about our house, it's a red brick

Pete

See

David

Or, just as likely, there's a steel lintel behind with a lip on which the vertical bricks rest.

MBQ

If your house is 1950's, 60's or early 70's (i.e. before Catnic lintels were invented) it's almost 100% certain the soldier courses (vertical bricks) are supported using reinforced concrete "boot" lintels. These are a normal rectangle shape concrete beam 6" or 9" high x 4½" wide, sitting flush with the interior face of the wall under the inner skin, with a projecting L section 3" high boot section on the outside face. Sometimes this goes right through, under the outer skin, so you can see the face of the concrete on the outside, but often it just closes the cavity above the window and has galvanised wire ties cast in, which the bricklayer builds into the joints of the soldier course.

These ties often rust and break (especially if these is no cavity tray damp-course or weep holes over the boot section). The rust cracks the joints of the soldier course, the wire breaks and the weight of the bricks ends up sitting on the window frame.

Repairing cracked soldier courses is simple. There is no need to remove the concrete lintel. If not badly misplaced, the existing brickwork can also often be retained and held back using stainless steel retro wall ties chemically anchored into the concrete at 300mm centres, and then just repointed. If the brickwork is badly affected it will need rebuilding using similar ties, and it may be necessary on wider openings to use one or two Strongboy props to support the brickwork above. The soldiers can normally rest on steel or timber window frames for temporary support, but PVC windows will sag, so extra temporary support is needed. If the soldier course is rebuilt it is wise to build in a new cavity tray dpc over the boot, and form weep holes for any water in the cavity to drain away.

Peter

By Acrows... assuming you want to keep the upstairs bay upstairs.

Thanks for all the replies. Yes the house was built in the '50s and there is a DPC about the soldiers. in some cases there is a slight crack between the end soldier and the horizontal bricks.

I did change a door frame which also has soldiers above it. I never really thought about how the bricks were supported at the time. I should have looked more closely at the lintel arrangement.

Yes, that's OK while the work is being done, but it's not a permanent solution. I have been called in on many occasions to investigate why bay window structures have shifted or partially collapsed after replacing windows, and it's virtually always because the window fitters didn't do the job properly.

Sometimes the bay structure is supported on the first floor joists, which cantilever out over a beam in line with the main house wall - this is ideal. You can sometimes check this by finding the direction of the first floor joists, although you can't confirm it unless you lift the floorboards in the bay. It's more common to find the bay structure is supported by the timber posts in the ground floor windows, and then it's necessary to work out how to support it permanently BEFORE the windows are removed. Window fitters are usually not equipped, mentally or materially, to do this.

No modern window is designed to take any structural load. PVC window manufacturers have worked out how to do it using aluminium structural posts with jacking plates, which fit into the junctions between the frames and concealed by PVC sheet, but the actual fitters are paid per window and hardly ever bother to do this properly. There are very many claims and court cases over this.

Peter

Check out

If you have any further info on the likely success of court cases I would be very interested. My mother is trying to sell a bungalow where the wood/metal frames were replace with plastic ones almost 10 years ago. The windows are large, the potential purchasers surveyor has pointed out that there are cracks above the windows which have likely occured because the plastic frames are not as strong as the previous ones. The window installer is still trading.

Excellent Tony, when I read it I realised I could have written that page myself :o)

"Michael Chare" wrote

It's difficult to advise you here and now Michael. I think my advice would be to see if the sale goes through. If it fails or the price is reduced because of the damage then you probably have a case. Bear in mind though that house surveyors often don't understand the full technical aspects of this, and the cracks may not be due to the windows at all. As I said, windows are not expected to carry structural loads, so it could be something else - for instance see my other post about concrete boot lintels.

Also, very important, remember it will cost you a lot of stress and heartache to go to court (not to mention money) even if you win, so you might be wise to consider the lowered price if it's not too ridiculous.

If you still want to proceed with court action, you need to find an expert witness who has experience in window cases - it could be a consultant like Philip Rougier in Tony's link, or it might be a Chartered Building Surveyor (like me) etc. It depends where you are, but you might need to go to your nearest big city. Look in Yellow Pages or you could check the RICS Index of firms here:

When you find someone, ask them to inspect the damage and prepare a report on its cause and any remedial work necessary. Allow them to expose any bits necessary to check on the structural situation if they need to. You'll need to pay for this, obviously. Ask the expert to give guidance on whether court action is advisable.

The likely success of any legal action you take depends really on the particular circumstances - no two are alike. You will probably need a lawyer of some sort but the expert witness will advise you on this after inspecting the damage, and may even be able to recommend a suitable lawyer. It is now possible to bypass solicitors (who I find don't often help a lot) and instruct a barrister direct.

Peter

Thanks for your advice, we are keeping our fingers crossed!