Repairing lintel

[decolores9]

The lintel over my garage door has rusted and needs to be replaced. This was a known problem when I bought the house, and has caused the wall above the garage to bow and separate, cracking some of the corner bricks.

There is a covered porch above the garage, with large windows on the garage door face.

I've been thinking about how to repair this lintel, and if I should do it myself. I'm pretty handy, but haven't done much brick work (have done block work).

1. Is this something I should hire out?
2. Some of the books suggest that the lintel is not supporting the entire wall, but just a "triangle" of bricks above it. Is this true?
3. If I take out the old lintel, is it likely to immediately collapse?
4. What process and sequence of steps would you recommend?

Thanks!!!

[Shanley]

1. If you don't feel comfortable doing this yourself, then you should.
2. This is true, compressive loads on masonry walls travel diagonally at about 30 degrees.
3. Depends on how stable the brick work is above the lintel. I have replaced lintels in brick work without shoring. If the veneer anchors and the bond of the mortar are still structurally intact this shouldn't completely collaspe.
4. I need more details. How much brick work and outer components are above this lintel? Is this a cavity wall? What is the back up material? How wide and high is the opening under the lintel? What is thethe age of the structure? What size are the bricks?

[decolores9]

Thanks for the reply. The structure is a one car garage with a covered porch above it. It's "tacked on" the back of the house, parallel to the street behind the house. The garage is original to the house, build 1944 (best guess). The garage is concrete block with brick veneer. The garage 'roof' is poure concrete, and construction above that point appears to be two bricks deep (wythes?). The lintel is over the garage door and the opening is 7' 6" wide and 7' tall. The bricks are old size Belden Brick.

One issue is getting more brick. I can buy new Belden brick, but they are the new size, not the old size. There is a used brick place in the area that MAY have some brick to match. Is it feasible to reuse the old brick?

[Shanley]

It's kind of difficult to explain how I would go about this repair without actually seeing it. I certainly would remove all the unstable brick, which I presume would make enough room for installing the new lintel. I would pop out a few of the brick above the repair area and install shoring posts, if I was concerned about the area above collasping. It appears to me that the concrete roof should provide a bridge over the repair area thus protecting the construction above from collasping.

Salvaging the brick is an option, however very difficult to save all the brick during removal. Some brick can be extremely difficult to clean for reuse.
An option I would consider is installing new brick in a different pattern, such a a soldier course(s) or project out , say 3/4 of an inch, from the plane of the rest of the bldg. This would make it much easier to mask that a repair was done and looks great too.

Hope this helps.