Is this structural?

[LondonBornAndBred]

We are in the process of buying a house and are a little concerned about some sagging in the brickwork at the rear of the property. Are any experts/experienced homeowners able to give a view as to whether this is indeed structural and requires a RSJ?

Or could this be as simple as poorly fitted doors/windows (opinion of the estate agent)?

We've booked in a full structural survey but keen to gauge other's opinion in the meantime.

Background info: it is a 1960s house which had structural issues 20 years ago. It was underpinned between 3 and 6m with concrete at the time. No known structural issues since. The room above where the window is has more wall and skirting board cracking than any other room internally.

Thanks!

Not an expert but could be water from window area above or just bad pointing. It looks like someone repaired pointing before.

Or bad lintel support under the bricks. Does the lintel sag?

It could be that you might need to get it repointed every few years or maybe just once depending on how long you live there.

If the cracks run through the bricks it foundation movement.

It's expensive to get it fixed unless you can do it yourself and even with a tradesman sometimes the cracks reappear after a couple years.

So you can actually see that the plinth above the outside of the doors is bent in the middle which is why we were thinking it is either failing or needs an RSJ. We def aren't skilled enough to do the work ourselves, and have a baby on the way too (of course brilliant timing to be selling/buying/moving 🙈😂)

My guess is either the lintel above the doors is bowed, or i suspect there isn’t one there at all ? Usually when you see this kind of thing its when an old wooden window/ door has been removed and a new pvc one put in. So either the brickwork has sagged a little when the window was out or the weight of the brickwork is too much for the weaker pvc one and starts to move.

Old windows without a lintel on the outside skin should have one installed before new windows/doors go in.

Looking at the pictures closely you can see there is no lintel on the outside brickwork as on the right hand side you can see the bricks have dropped lower but the end one is still in place. This wouldnt be able to happen if there was a lintel there.
There is probably a concrete one on the inside.

That's really interesting and along the lines that we've been thinking. Assuming there is a concrete one inside like you said, how would you fit one outside retrospectively? Would it be removing the doors, fitting it and refitting/replacing the doors?

As you say there must be something on the inside holding the brickwork up, old houses used wood, but I’m guessing it’s concrete looking st the age of your house.

There would be no need to remove the doors as you can get single skin steel lintels . All the brickwork that is cracked would need to be removed on the outside,lintel in and brickwork built back up. Its a pretty straightforward job to be honest.

like these.

https://www.huwsgray.co.uk/building-materials/lintels-and-padstones/single-leaf-lintels-10370-0000

Cor blimey - that looks much more simple than the £10k RSJ replacement we've been gearing ourselves up to be told. Fingers crossed it's exactly this.

The mortgage surveyor refused to provide a valuation as they said that they suspected structural issues and wanted a full report (which was booked anyway). Hopefully there isn't anything else too concerning that comes up.

We've got a new build flat now so this would be our first adventure so to speak with a property. Quite excited but also bracing ourselves that it could be a money pit.

Thanks v much for your help and the time explaining :)

No problem, You do not need an rsj for that, a catnic/keystone lintel will be fine.

Here’s one i was removing, it shows how the bricks should sit on the lintel although this was a double skin one.

Then a brand new one, but again double not single skin.

I would say it would take one person maybe a couple of days, one day to knock it all out and clean the bricks up ( carefully) and one day to put it all back together.

Yes the outer skin is collapsing. Probably the inner skin is as well.

That house would have originally been built with either wood framed, or metal crittal windows and those would have contributed to the structure.

someone has replaced those and has not installed a lintel so the brickwork is collapsing.

Collapsing is a bit extreme, there is slight movement, it’s not going to go anywhere except sit on the frame and maybe bow it a bit. The reason there will be some cracks on the inside above is because the outside skin is tied together with the inside skin with metal wall ties, so movement on the outside will lead to a few cracks on the inside. There will be a lintel of some sort on the inside, masonry tends not to stay in place unsupported for long.

You see lots of it around where window fitters have just replaced the windows ( usually stronger wooden ) and not put a lintel in. It leads to brickwork cracking above and in some cases the window bowing underneath sometimes to the point of not being able to open/ shut the windows properly and even cracking the glass .

I'm guessing op if one has no lintel in then the others probably don’t either. ☹️

If you took those patio doors out you’d find out how extreme the situation is.

Looking at the photos I think that the problem is the lack of proper lintels above the windows. In the 60s it was common to install wooden windows without a lintel above, not a problem in itself as wood is very strong. The problem comes in later years if the wooden windows are replaced by upvc which isn't as structurally strong as wood, over time the weight of bricks on the plastic causes the drooping brick effect. We had this extract problem with out 1960's house and initially it was diagnosed as subsidence but later corrected to lintel issues. We replaced all the missing lintels and the repaired the brickwork and everything is now fine.