Lintel problem in a new build (1999)

emmielou

Hi, It has been pointed out to me today that there are two cracks going down from my first floor window in a pyramid shape. I have been told that the lintel needs replacing but is this correct in a house of 12 years? All the examples I have seen have been for much older houses?

Is this correct and how much would it cost to get fixed?

I'm now terrified that the front of the house is going to fall off!!

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phill99

Who told you that the lintel needs replacing? You need to get a reliable person to havea look before making assumptions.

PasturesNew

On the worry of the front of the house dropping off in the night ... it'd need to be a LOT worse than that before that happened.... so you can sleep easy tonight.

Could be all sorts of minor/cosmetic issues ..... on the other hand it could be signs of something trickier.

However.... stress ye not tonight.

thebaldwindowfitter

i would in the first instance remove the first row of tiles on your porch and make sure that the packings under the lintel or the padstones supporting them hasnt moved i wouldnt think there would be much wrong with the lintol unless its undersized

leveller2911

Our house was built in 1993 and one of the lintels had to be replaced around 2000. The existing lintel didn't have enough support/bearing on the brickwork. Looked very similar to yours but as others have stated it won't fall down anytime soon but needs to be looked at.



Is there a door frame underneath the 1st floor window?

Mistral001

This is a job for a qualified structural engineer. One should be able to determine the cause and significance of the cracks and have full professional indemnity insurance to stand over any advice that they give.

emmielou

Thanks for your replies, you were right, the front of my house is still here (fingers crossed, touch wood).

I will have to get a surveyor out to have a look, hopefully it is not the lintel, surely they should last longer than ten odd years!

There isn't a door underneath, its the downstairs bathroom underneath the window.

leveller2911

emmielou wrote: »

I will have to get a surveyor out to have a look, hopefully it is not the lintel, surely they should last longer than ten odd years!


They tend to put packers between the lintel and the blockwork, if they didn't fit them correctly,sub-standard materials like offcuts of celcon blocks then they can compress over time with the weight. Ours was exactly that, they packed them with offcuts of light weight blocks, no sand and cement and then compressed,dropped and cracks appeared.It may not be the case with yours but it looks exactly as ours did.