Make Doorframes bigger/taller - DIY or need someone?

ST1991

Hi there!
I live in an older house (approx 300 years old) and whilst most of the door frames are still on the smaller size, they are suitable. Except one - one which is a few inches shorter than the others. This means my partner just catches the top of his head on it when walking through without ducking a tiny bit.
It's our spare bedroom, so he doesn't have much need to go in there at the moment, as it's really not currently used.

Some facts:
The house has solid stone walls which are about a foot thick, but the interior walls are much thinner and don't appear to be the same material.
The house has a double roof, which is coming down on the wall on which this door frame sits.
There is only about a foot of space between the top of the current door frame and where the ceiling meets it (as it is pitched).
I have no idea is this is a load bearing wall or not, or how to find out.
We'll shortly be turning it into a nursery, so access will of course be needed more regularly (no problem for 5ft2 me - but for him yes.)
(Edit - sorry just to add, this is on the ground floor, it's upstairs so all that is above is the roof/loft)

My question is... Is this something we can do ourselves, or would it be better to have someone come in and do it for us? And would anyone have done something similar before with a rough estimated cost? If it can be done ourselves is there anything specific to bear in mind? Most articles i can find online only relate to stud-walls...
Obviously funds are tight at the moment with all things considered, and it would be difficult to get anyone out to have a look - but it does need to be done to spare his skull...

Mutton_Geoff

What's in the loft immediately above the wall with the door in it? That will tell you whether you need to prop it (acrow props) when you cut out and fit a new lintel. Depending on what the wall is made of, it can be very messy if you have to saw the old wall out.

ST1991

Thanks for the fast reply. So directly above it is where the front and back roofs meet and come down to a gutter (which runs along the terrace of houses).
The roof comes down on that whole wall, it's difficult to explain... Similar to if it was the 'front wall' of your house, except it's an interior wall? We have a 'M' shaped roof - where the middle point basically comes down on that wall...

Ideally it only needs to be made taller by 2 inches - so it's really quite a small amount to take off for such a big job...!

Failing that, anything i can do to shrink my partner? 

stuart45

1ft is quite thin for an old solid stone wall. The interior wall might well be brickwork. The wall in question sounds like it's probably a load bearing wall, but it's probably not a difficult job for a builder. Could be done DIY, depending on your skills.

FreeBear

If the wall is load bearing, then you should really get any work done signed off by building control - Depending on the loading & construction, you might get away with an acro + strongboy to give a bit of support while a new lintel is fitted higher up. One question though - Is the property listed ?

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

The problem that can occur with stone walls is you start with a small hole and suddenly you have a very big hole. If the wall housing the doorway turns out to be a stone wall personally I'd pay someone to do it properly if your DIY skills are limited.

If it is a solid wall would OP need pad stones for the lintel to sit on?   

GDB2222

The way it is described by the OP, the lintel above this door has the weight of two roofs on it. Possibly the reason why the door is so low is to leave room for a massive lintel to take the load. A modern lintel could possibly be a lot smaller and still work, but it’s not a job for an amateur. You maybe need a structural engineer.

The starting point is to see what is there currently, and an amateur can certainly hack off the plaster to expose the existing support.

ST1991

Thanks everyone - i hadn't thought of that before (the fact there is already not much room above the doorway) and now you've said that, it makes perfect sense... both roofs are indeed coming down at this point, so actually i'd rather not disrupt it.

I think he's just going to have to duck through it every time in that case... I don't think it's worth the cost/potential issues/disruption to the rest if the house for an extra few inches of height...

There is a very small amount that i can shave off from the inside of the frame as someone has previously bodged it a little (looks like they bought a door that was too small and built up the frame more).
Also sorry my measurements are rubbish but our exterior walls are are close to 50cm thick - the interior ones are much thinner so i think they would just be brick. Cm/Feet... not my forte!
Also, it is not listed

FreeBear

He will quickly learn to duck after banging his head a few times. If not, plenty of short people in the gene pool....

As for measuring stuff, I find it easier to use milimetres for smaller stuff, and metres for the big bits (occasionally mixing in inches to keep people on their toes).