Michael Chare wrote:

On the downstairs windows, my house has a row of vertical bricks above the
windows, rather than an identifiable lintel!

There is much popular misunderstanding around lintels and brickwork.

Firstly there are many houses with no support at all for bricks above
openings, and in almost all cases it hasnt gone anywhere. Brickwork
over small openings is almost - but not quite - completely self
supporting. Most unsupported brickwork above is completely self
supporting, but there will be a triangle of bricks that is only 99.9%
self supporting, and can very occasionally fail. In the cases where it
does fail, one almost always sees telltale cracks for a while before
any fall could occur, so even failing brickwork is not likely to drop.

The worst example I saw was a large unsupported opening of IIRC
somewhere around 10 feet, with only the slimmest of pillars at each
end, on 4" walls. These 9" pillars gave little sideways restraint, the
4" walls likewise, and it is to a large extent the sideways restraint
that makes the brickwork above support itself. Even that held up for 15
years before it started to crack. Porper support was eventually
installed.

Usually soldier courses have hidden support. If they dont, the risk is
tiny, but not zero. The risk then is from needing to repair, and from
falling bricks, not structural collapse, as it is only a triangle of
bricks that falls in the worst case.


I am wondering how much the bricks
are supported by the metal window frames, which will be quite strong as there
are vertical bars.

Is this a common arrangement?

Window frames used to support brickwork are not uncommon, so its
possible.

When no lintel is visible, there is normally some form of support
present.


NT