Do I have a lintel now?

butterflyhill

Hi, I had a new kitchen window installed yesterday. It needed a lintel.

I'm a bit worried as the brickwork in before and after photos look the same. Installer assures me a lintel was fitted but I'm not so sure.

Appreciate if anyone could confirm I do now have a lintel. Cheers 

stuart45

I can't really see a lintel from the photo. Do you know what type of lintel he put in. A lintel for the outer skin brickwork would need to sit on the bricks each side of the frame. As the bricks aren't level with the top of the frame that's not possible. 

FreeBear

Needed lintels for the outer leaf of brickwork over two windows here. One, we got away with removing a couple of bricks at the top of the opening and wriggling it to place. This was helped by the fact that the timber trim around the reveal on the inside could be taken out.

The second opening was not so easy (no space for any wriggling). Ended up having to remove the soldier course to get the lintel in place. After sourcing some matching imperial sized bricks, each one needed ~6mm trimmed off the back before mortaring in with a lime mortar.

In both cases, it is easy to spot which bricks had been removed simply by looking at the colour of the mortar joints. I would stick my neck out and say that the kitchen (?) window has not had a lintel installed. The patio door might have had one fitted.

butterflyhill

I've just had a closer look and the bricks underneath the canopy thing has new grouting. So could he have put lintel below canopy?

For some reason I thought lintels were put in a few courses above window - so was looking in the wrong place.

stuart45

Maybe he has put one then. The one over the top is the tray, to stop moisture coming down the cavity into the window head and inside the house.

HHarry

I doubt it. There’s a gap in the mortar above the first course of bricks in the before picture, which is still there in the after.  I can’t see how you can fit a lintel without disturbing that course.

  The same goes with the canopy, it looks exactly the same before & after - so I’m not sure which sort of magic lintels he’s used.

 These guys retrofit lintels all the time - it gives you an idea of how much brickwork they take out to do it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig_8AKQRGsI

stuart45

Those 2 are not a good example of bricklayers. Look at the way he's using a pointing trowel to pin up. 

EssexExile

HHarry said:

I doubt it. There’s a gap in the mortar above the first course of bricks in the before picture, which is still there in the after.  I can’t see how you can fit a lintel without disturbing that course.

  The same goes with the canopy, it looks exactly the same before & after - so I’m not sure which sort of magic lintels he’s used.

 These guys retrofit lintels all the time - it gives you an idea of how much brickwork they take out to do it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig_8AKQRGsI

I would've thought it would be a lot easier to get a piece of angle iron into position while the window is out than with it in as on the video. Also the position of the op's window means they wouldn't have to put in those supports in above the window during the work.

stuart45

EssexExile said:

HHarry said:

I doubt it. There’s a gap in the mortar above the first course of bricks in the before picture, which is still there in the after.  I can’t see how you can fit a lintel without disturbing that course.

  The same goes with the canopy, it looks exactly the same before & after - so I’m not sure which sort of magic lintels he’s used.

 These guys retrofit lintels all the time - it gives you an idea of how much brickwork they take out to do it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig_8AKQRGsI

I would've thought it would be a lot easier to get a piece of angle iron into position while the window is out than with it in as on the video. Also the position of the op's window means they wouldn't have to put in those supports in above the window during the work.

It's possible to get a lintel in there with the window out and the bearing ends of the jambs removed, so it's different as you said to the video. Unlikely a window fitter would want to rebuild that tiled window head.