Morning all, Bought a house I'm doing some work on and have removed the gas fireplace to reveal a nice old fireplace. Its not quite wide enough for a freestanding wood burner so I'm hoping to removing half a brick from each side. I've removed plasterboard fairly high and cant see an obvious metal or stone lintel, only assuming the arched bricks do that job?! My question is can I remove the arched bricks to put a wider concrete lintel in? I could maybe even get away with putting the lintel in lower than the arch. I'll try and add a picture! Thanks in advance.
Thought this might be the case, doesn't look too sturdy to me! It's been there 100years though so not doing a bad job..
You should be able to easily replace with a concrete lintel. In my old house i had arched bricks but they were higher up as when i opened it up it was good sized early victorian fire place size. I put in a new concrete lintel just below the arch as it was up quite a bit higher than yours.
Brilliant! How did you do it? Just remove the brick arch and pop a brick or so out either side?(I understand you have to have the correct overlap) I would imagine as the fireplace is so narrow it will be fine suspended for a very short period whilst I put the lintel in?!
And even if it wasn't you would only get a max of 8 bricks dropping on your head which can easily be put back after you have put the lintel in
Excellent, thank you all for the advice! A job for the weekend I imagine. Will post some after pics if I remember.