Close to finishing extension job. Needing removal of original front door+sidelight (now internal) to open up. 1972 standard brick house.
Having just taken the frame out, I was shocked to see no external lintel has been fitted! Door frame was holding up the external brickwork and was built in with the bricklaying. The Internal lintel turns out to be reinforced concrete. I was so much expecting a steel lintel to be present above the frame, I didn't check, and it never even occurred to me that any builder might do something this bad.
I hastily replaced the top frame member and jammed in several very tight props. Nothing seems to have moved above during the 20 minutes of shock before I got to this point. The opening is 1.7M wide in sound brickwork. The wall above has no openings at all up to house eaves, and there is lots of wall either side.
So having just poked about on Google, it seems quite common to find this crappy practice from the 1970's.
The "external" wall above and to the sides is now an internal wall to the new single storey (but full eaves height lean-to) extension. It will be dot and dabbed. This leaves me plenty of space to hide things behind, and it will never see any weather.
Potential fix
A) Bolt on a large steel plate to the "external" wall. I would consider perhaps 100mm x 10mm with chemical anchors bolts, one into each brick (opening is 7 bricks wide). Gives little lateral stiffness though.
B) Similar, but use large steel angle. (eg 100 x 75 x 10 sounds chunky to me, and I could get a bit from the steel stockholder). I would probably bolt on a temporary support plate above before taking out my props and digging out for the bearing supports, so more work. This could also be bolted in horizontally in a few spots. Better solution I guess.
Other opinions? Bearing in mind that "external" appearance is irellevant. Or am I advised to source a concrete lintel, pin and prop in more conventional way?
Having just taken the frame out, I was shocked to see no external lintel has been fitted! Door frame was holding up the external brickwork and was built in with the bricklaying. The Internal lintel turns out to be reinforced concrete. I was so much expecting a steel lintel to be present above the frame, I didn't check, and it never even occurred to me that any builder might do something this bad.
I hastily replaced the top frame member and jammed in several very tight props. Nothing seems to have moved above during the 20 minutes of shock before I got to this point. The opening is 1.7M wide in sound brickwork. The wall above has no openings at all up to house eaves, and there is lots of wall either side.
So having just poked about on Google, it seems quite common to find this crappy practice from the 1970's.
The "external" wall above and to the sides is now an internal wall to the new single storey (but full eaves height lean-to) extension. It will be dot and dabbed. This leaves me plenty of space to hide things behind, and it will never see any weather.
Potential fix
A) Bolt on a large steel plate to the "external" wall. I would consider perhaps 100mm x 10mm with chemical anchors bolts, one into each brick (opening is 7 bricks wide). Gives little lateral stiffness though.
B) Similar, but use large steel angle. (eg 100 x 75 x 10 sounds chunky to me, and I could get a bit from the steel stockholder). I would probably bolt on a temporary support plate above before taking out my props and digging out for the bearing supports, so more work. This could also be bolted in horizontally in a few spots. Better solution I guess.
Other opinions? Bearing in mind that "external" appearance is irellevant. Or am I advised to source a concrete lintel, pin and prop in more conventional way?
