Lintel construction has varied through the decades from very elaborate brick arch lintels to less elaborate concrete lintels.
Edwardian & Victorian built properties often feature very elaborate brick arch lintels and having with stood over 200 years of change many of them are showing signs of failure. One of the most common causes of brick arch lintel failure is the change of a load bearing timber window to an uPVC non load bearing window causing the common stepped cracking that apparent on many buildings.
Lintel Repair
Lintel construction has changed with various methods and materials now in use such as flat soldier course lintels, pre stressed concrete lintels and catnic lintels. They can all fail for various reasons such as changes in structural loads, ground movement, and thermal expansion, and in concrete lintels fail due to oxidisation of the reinforcing bar.
Victorian Built Lintels
In the majority of cases, lintel failure can be repaired using the Twistfix heliforce system, incorporating bed joint reinforcement with pinning ties and resin injection forming masonry beams within the structure alleviating the need for costly disruptive remove and rebuild of the lintel which is the traditional approach.
Lintel Repair Using Twistfix Helical Beams
Newman’s are experts in lintel repair and have installed lintel repair schemes across London and the South East.
Newman Building Solutions were contacted by a local home owner who had suffered at the hands of a rogue trader, who had poorly constructed this single storey extension in surrey.
The extension had been built on inadequate foundations causing it to subside leaving the addition with cracking in various areas.
We were asked to design a scheme that would restore the structural integrity of the masonry where cracking had occurred and prevent any further subsidence.
As the homeowner had already used a large amount of their savings and a failed claim to the insurers, we monitored the movement and designed a bed joint reinforcement scheme that would restore the structural integrity alleviating the need for piling or underpinning.
Deep masonry beams were installed to the external skin of masonry wrapping around the structure along with deep masonry beams to the internal skin tying to the external structure. Crack Stitches were also used to tie separated masonry to the internal skin.
The repairs were made good with local areas of plastering and repointing.
The movement was monitored for 12 months and there was found to be no further movement and the repairs were guaranteed against failure for ten years.
