In article , "Perry
Gunn" says...
On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 15:46:31 +0100, John Rumm
waxed lyrical about:

Perry Gunn wrote:

Things appear to be worse than I thought - after my earlier post we
decided to remove more plaster and expose around the end of the RSJ to
give the builder more to see/work with and we've found that there's no
steel there!

Maybe it's not required.
snip

The outer skin of the external wall has a concrete lintel and the
inner skin has a couple of 5x2 timbers stood on end! Just had a rush
trip to the hire shop and now got acrows supporting the opening and
the ceilings on either side just to be safe.

A couple of 5x2 next to each other is pretty much as good as a single
5x4 - they will be more prone to bowing sideways if not bolted
together, but the vertical stiffness will be the same.

How much wall is there being supported on the timber?


The opening is about 8ft. It's a two-story house and the opening was
originally a ground floor window (now free space) and the wood is
bridging the inner of the cavity wall skins.

How the *%$^ did that get through building regs - and it must have

By someone doing the calculations to show that it is adequately
supported perhaps?

Point taken! Although it doesn't appear to be adequate any more given
the subsequent movement of the wall and cracking that has occurred.

The problem sounds like settling in the foundations rather than
weakness in the lintel, although I'm not sure that I've understood
your description of the situation.