Ive got a bad feeling this is gonna cost a fortune! The outer bricks above my Living room window have all dropped almost all the way up to the upstairs window cill & most of them are loose to the touch. Its an old house so no cavity & im guessing that means no support for the bricks above the window like in new houses.
Any brickys out there can tell me if this is an easy fix before I get robbed??

Cheers.

It sounds like you don't have a lintel above the downstairs window.
I've come accross it loads of times, last time someone had taken out a 3.5foot wide window and left the original 4' wide stone lintel in. But then the brickwork had been opened up and a 6' wide window fitted. This had been done to both the downstairs and upstairs windows.
When I came to sort it out, the front of the house had dropped and the upstairs floor was dipping too as that was supported by the wall. It was onnly the double glazed glass units that were holding up the wall!!!

Jacked it all up, acro's, new lintels, re bricked it all up and then good as new.

2 days work will get it all sorted, possibly 1 full day depending on how bad the problem is, or if scaffolding is required more.

You need to get a builder out to the job.

Bob

Ive got a bad feeling this is gonna cost a fortune! The outer bricks above my Living room window have all dropped almost all the way up to the upstairs window cill & most of them are loose to the touch. Its an old house so no cavity & im guessing that means no support for the bricks above the window like in new houses.
Any brickys out there can tell me if this is an easy fix before I get robbed??

Cheers.

Get some pics up bow,and i might be able to give you some advise.
Bit of infro below.
You will probably fined,that there is some kind of lintol on the back of the aparture,wood,concrete ect(nothing on the front),that`s why you say outer bricks have dropped,have the windows been changed recently,from the originals.
rob

O.K thanks for the advice, the inside wall of the window must have some sort of lintel because the plasterwork was done around 3 years ago & not even a hairline crack showing. Any Ideas how much a brickie would charge to do this work? Heres a pic.
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k271/bowsaaa/DSC00087.jpg

O.K thanks for the advice, the inside wall of the window must have some sort of lintel because the plasterwork was done around 3 years ago & not even a hairline crack showing. Any Ideas how much a brickie would charge to do this work? Heres a pic.
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k271/bowsaaa/DSC00087.jpg

FWIW

Looking at the photo I'm guessing that the uPVC DG window I can see has been fitted fairly recently? ie. last 18 months? If so this problem could have occured due to thermal expansion. Basically uPVC like most materials does move in different heat conditions, it generally expands in heat but is not as suseptible (sp) to contracting in the cold. It may well be that the lintel is perfectly good but the window was fitted in warm weather conditions and subsquent thermal conditions have made the uPVC shrink, thus movement in bricks as the lintel has moved.

Looking at the brick it looks the age of house that it is possible the wrong lintel has been used, you will need a building contractor to come and expose the lintel to see if it is the right one for the job.

The lintel could be fine and the brickwork will just need re-pointing if cracked. This is quite a common problem.

chop :)

Thanks for the reply chopper, the windows have been fitted over 8years now (old scool external bead). It cant be seen in the picture but the actual window frame itself is bowing with the weight of the bricks on it. Had'nt noticed before but looking at the picture I now see the 5 cross-laid bricks havent really dropped so maybe just removing & re-laying the vertical bricks below & re-pointing the others above may solve it..... But what do I know, im just a spanner monkey!:lol1:

Hmmm, its interesting to note that it looks like its been pointed up before. So its either an old crack reappearing or it's still moving a little. Probably down to a combination the type of lintol used and the windows.

I'd keep an eye on it and see if progresses.