Lintel not wide enough

[awtistiaeth]

Hi People. I live in a Welsh stone cottage that was 'renovated' by an idiot around 37 years ago with no Planning permission and thus not building regs. It has been a nightmare for me for over 20 years trying to re-do everything correctly.

I have just discovered that the entrance from the front-room to the bedroom is a widened opening (around 3ft) but with the original slate-slab lintel left in. It is resting on cement based mortar and a horizonatal 3x2 going across a vertical 3x2 that seems to go the ground. The simplest option to me seems to be to reduce the opening to the orginal width 2ft 6" ish) so that the lintel is supported by 150mm of the replaced wall. If that is the best option, and I'm happy to hear other advice, can I just set the first layer of stone or bricks onto the concrete floor and tie them into the existing wall as I go up?

 

[paulc]

For opening less than 1200mm wide, you can get away with just 100mm bearings either end. The pad stones need to be a solid brick, stone, or concrete, so the 3x2 lump of timber is not appropriate.
Depending on what a structural engineer recommends, you could replace that horizontal 3x2 with a precast concrete lintel (or a length of steel). With the beam suitably supported, the scrap of timber embedded in the wall removed, and the void packed with load bearing concrete or an engineering brick.

 

[Cubist]

can I just set the first layer of stone or bricks onto the concrete floor and tie them into the existing wall as I go up?

You could but 'tying' any new brickwork to the extant walls - presumably by using wire ties rather than splicing the new brickwork into the old - seems to me a rather wasteful approach as the old door and its frame and fittings would almost certainly need to be replaced. Far better, as @paulc has suggested, to simply replace the existing lintel. Far less waste and, in many respects much easier to achieve.

 

[awtistiaeth]

Thanks both for the responses. Rest assured, I have no intention of using the 3x2 as a lintel. I guess it'd be ok for a rabbit hutch! The 3x2 in front of the slate lintel seemns to have been used to support the huge amount of render he applied to the wall to try and make it level, rather than support the stones. I'm not that precious about the door as it happens as it has been constructed from old floorboards and the frame, like all the door frames here, from roughsawn 3x2 with roof battens nailed to it as a stop/seal. When I moved here, the roof was resting on homemade window frames made the same way. What with old chipboard wardrobes for floor boards and a home made Y-Piece to connect to chimneys together (changed into 1 stove flue and 1 chimney done to HETAS standards as soon as it was discovered) I'm suprised we're still here and breathing! Thanks again.