Sure I read on the forum in the past theres a few in the building/ construction trade? Shortly (next month or so) I will be getting in touch with a couple local firms for a quote but in the meantime looking for some advice, Looks like my Stone built house may need the living room window lintels replaced, How much approx is this likely to cost?????? Also as I don't want to be in the dark and would like to know exactly what im been quoted for what questions should I be asking the building company while there here? Its a stone built house, Wall is 650mm thick, I believe the lintels in there at the moment are steel which I believe are rail tracks??? Ive added a few photos to assist on any info you could help with, The underside is just a concrete finishing not the surface of a lintel, Would really appreciate and guidance on any of the above as I have no idea whatsoever about this type of thing, The last photo is just of the inside of the garage so you can see the type of stone build it is,
Cannot tell much from the photo's, but you say rail tracks but I am guessing you mean rsj's, it looks to me as the render is coming away from the steel, there are no structural cracks above the window area so I would say all is ok. I would remove the render to see exactly what is under there.
ok lads, I had asked advice of a friend of a friend (Bricky) and he seemed to think the lintel was rusting and the reason for the render dropping, maybe reason for pushing the render away?? there are a couple small cracks one at ether side about 4" long going up at 45 degrees (are small) , Hard to see, now on the inside the window blind has dropped slightly, just thought that maybe the same thing was happening there?? Main reason I ask is I have not a clue about this type of thing and don't want to be shafted with major work/ bill when its not required, If it is just the render this is something my son can do and the inside plasterboard etc I am fairly handy at myself, Going by what you guys are thinking would it be worth me removing the render and plasterboard myself inside (not a problem) and take it from there?? This should tell me exactly what I need to know? Ive been in a little bit of a panic over it as its defo got worse over the last 2 to 3 years, Worst case scenario what kind of money is involved if lintels were required? Just a very rough ball park figure, Put my mind at ease , Reading these replys and sitting writing this ive made up my mind to remove the plasterboard inside and if alls good I will remove the render outside and take it from there, Appreciate the replys lads Cheers Jack
Looks like it could be made good to me as well. And in fact if you did the Rolls Royce job on it, would still be cheaper than replacement.
Rather than guessing no matter what youre going to have to pull the plaster off to see the state of the lintels....then you'd be able to see.....even then lintel replacement isnt that bad....go to local tool hire, hire out props, drill into the wall just above the lintels themselves, slide the props in and tighten them to take the weight of the wall above, remove the window and then use a jackhammer to get to the lintels.... We took out and entire supporting wall in our house to open up the kitchen and dining room...its no different. You could also buy 2 lintels and replace one side at a time...ie a double skinned wall which looks like what youve got there...factor in a day per lintel just to be safe...assuming they needed to be replaced of course...
Having said the above they look to be ok to me....unless its the stonework directly above the lintel that could be crumbling??
Depends on the condition of the steel. Break off the render and I'd guess you'll probably be looking at an RSJ with scale on it. The decrease in pH of the concrete mix before casting and molding affects the early hydration and strength but improves the later age concrete properties. Decreasing of PH detrmines loss of alkaline protection of rebars. Corrosion of bars can happen, due to carbonation, humidity, and or chlorides attack. So the steel gets corroded, gets bigger as it rusts and then blows the render. You need to brighten the steel with an angle grinder or MBX type machine then apply something like this.... http://www.mapei.com/public/COM/products/453_mapefer1k_gb.pdf Then get your roughcaster to re-render as normal. Thousands saved... No need for new lintels...
Until you investigate further you won't really know, you say the walls are 650mm wide which indicates an old building, if so its most likely a solid wall with no cavity, some of these buildings were built with wooden lintols, the width of your walls would need at least three concrete lintols fitted side by side. It's not a big job for a builder.
Hi mate, Yes its an old building with no cavity, House was owned by my dad before for 30ish years and he remembers the lintels been steel, Ive had house around 10 years, I was worrying as I honestly thought this was a MAJOR job costing thousands if lintels were required, Will do as recommended and remove the plaster then the render and take from there, This forum is the biz Cheers again
If the lintels are real railway rails, you haven't got much to worry about; unless there is only one holding up 650mm thick masonry above an 1800mm wide window (and then that is only the amount of masonry roughly inside a 45 degree triangle above the window where the triangle base is the bottom of the lintel and the sides of the triangle spring from the reveals). But the double casement window appears to be 1200mm wide rather than 1800mm, so the triangle would only just about reach the sill of the single window above. However, it does look to me as though the underside of the double window head soffite is suffering from water ingress, from the way it is cracked and it irregular along the front edge. Personally I would find out what that soffite actually is, because it looks really thin - almost looks like asbestos. Basically the vertical wall rendering should have a drip formed, so it sits lower than that window head soffite - I wouldn't expect to have to remove any render from the vertical wall face to form the drip. Could be done by screwing an aluminium drip section to the render having bedded it on a suitable mastic.
It does look like when rendered, they forgot to put a drip bead in Can I ask, has it had insulation material added like a full insulation jacket and then rendered over with in recent years?
Looking at the air brick and the gutter i would say it has been rendered with no insulation and if i am being honest not the best job i have seen, lazy rendering in the gutter brackets and smooth rendering the window reveals.
The window is 1800mm, No insulation has been added in the past, The soffite is mortar and is a little thicker than the photo shows (not asbestos) I wont manage to remove plaster inside or the underside render outside just yet but will update when I get to it, Just to give a better idea this is the outside view of the house, Window in question is bottom right, As said before I really appreciate the advice, Cheers
The wall finish looks like what used to be called Tyrolean render. It wasn't actually sprayed on, but a bloke used a revolving 'drum' which he aimed at the wall and turned a handle which chucked the render onto the wall. I doubt you have much to worry about - the house had been standing for years. My place has a mixture of masonry walls with varied thickness (cavity and solid) but most of the lintels are crappy timber - they seem alright, though.
Part of my mct training is to access lintel's prior to window removal, a job I dislike as it often can lead to conflict with the customer, your build is not the norm, brick, cavity ,brick being the standard type build, your windows are set well into the building leaving a large unsupported area above the window head, how the brickwork is being supported can only be seen with a bit of digging.
I reckon a couple of lintels in my place are probably held up by the window frames! Luckily they are only single storey ones with a small amount of roof load on them.
That is exactly what I have to look for, in your case window removal would compromise the building structure , render is always a problem as fitting a concrete lintel is easy to do as it will never be seen as it will be covered by render, problem being is patching in render is almost impossible to get a good match the op house being a good example.
Was going to patch up my rendering on my house, ended up complete hack off replacement lintels and wall ties. The bells over windows and doors most important for drip off of water.
The biggest problem with applying Tyrolean Render was getting the mixture just right, to wet it would run and to dry and you couldn't turn the paddles, I did quite a bit many years ago. Steve
