Drilling through a lintel

[OneTenner]

Well, if you need to put a hole in the steel, Sir could use this

View attachment 524567

I got told off last time.... apparently proving to the RGJ's that cutting the venturi pipe with a leatherman to put it beyond use can be reversed with application with a bit of black & nasty was a fair point well made but one that I really should have proved on the dems range, not in Kosovo Polje....
Every day and all that!

 

[MrMemory]

If in doubt, just glue a 2"x 1" batten to the head (that's where the lintel is. (A tube of "No Nails" with a dispenser gun is perfectly adequate.)

Here is a picture of me getting it wrong.

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Will 'No Nails' be sufficient. - I didn't think it would be strong enough to hang curtains from?

 

[Moderator]

I never mentioned "square rods", but rather that the rods are welded into either squares of 15 x 15 centimetres or oblongs of 15 x 20 centimetres.

MsG

The collective imagination is seeing thing that are just not there then?

They are also produced in two versions. One has square rods of various thicknesses welded together 15 x 15 cms.

Hey ho.

 

[Arte_et_Marte]

Will 'No Nails' be sufficient. - I didn't think it was that strong?

"No Nails" is a lifesaver and perfectly strong enough for hanging curtains/blinds. We wouldnt do it, but only because we have an SDS drill with a selection of decent bits.

 

[rgjbloke]

Not all lintels have rebar.

Our old house had solid sandstone stone lintels.

Sandstone isn’t concrete and I would guess your sandstone lintels were likely shaped with some form of curvature across the top of them when they were cut from the quarry.

Another possibility is that they were for decorative purposes and you may have had steel catnic lintels doing the actual support work. Catnip’s are formed to blend into the brickwork without being an obvious feature.

 

[Daz]

If in doubt, just glue a 2"x 1" batten to the head (that's where the lintel is.) (A tube of "No Nails" with a dispenser gun is perfectly adequate.)

Here is a picture of me getting it wrong.

View attachment 524570

Arh ha, a fashion guru, wearing a face mask "before" it became trendy

 

[Mexeman]

@MrBane put the curtain track up in this house. He did a good job and It really wasn’t his fault the house fell down the first time the cutains were drawn.
View attachment 524557

I fitted out the house on the left of the picture. It had an ENORMOUS basement extension. The rear garden had a makeover including a fish pond with a glass bottom which formed a section of a ceiling in one of the new rooms. Nice contract but parking was a nightmare.

 

[putteesinmyhands]

I never mentioned "square rods", but rather that the rods are welded into either squares of 15 x 15 centimetres or oblongs of 15 x 20 centimetres.

MsG

"One has square rods of various thicknesses welded together..."

 

[Moderator]

Will 'No Nails' be sufficient. - I didn't think it was that strong?

It is that strong ... I think there are better versions these days but the strength comes from the relatively large glued surface spreading the load. the underlying wall needs to be in good order though.

 

[Moderator]

I fitted out the house on the left of the picture. It had an ENORMOUS basement extension. The rear garden had a makeover including a fish pond with a glass bottom which formed a section of a ceiling in one of the new rooms. Nice contract but parking was a nightmare.

Did you bump into MrBane?

 

[DaManBugs]

BTW, 'Rebar' is a particular type of steel reinforcing, most lintels have plain old drawn steel wire in 'em.

No they don't! Your "plain old steel wire" would pull straight through the concrete and defeat the whole purpose of reinforcement - which is to make sure that the lintel can withstand bending pressure put upon it.

The reinforcement mats have lateral ribs that ensure that the concrete has a good hold and is called "B" steel. The corner re-bar rods have, in addition to lateral ribs, also side ribs that wind their way around the length of the rod and are called "B" steel. What you might mean is smooth steel rod (called "A" steel) that is sometimes used to further strengthen the weight-bearing ends of wide large concrete roof spans.

MsG

 

[OneTenner]

Sandstone isn’t concrete and I would guess your sandstone lintels were likely shaped with some form of curvature across the top of them when they were cut from the quarry.

Another possibility is that they were for decorative purposes and you may have had steel catnic lintels doing the actual support work. Catnip’s are formed to blend into the brickwork without being an obvious feature.

A lot of old houses in Yorkshire have sandstone lintels, built before the days of structural steel.

 

[Arte_et_Marte]

It is that strong ... I think there are better versions these days but the strength comes from the relatively large glued surface spreading the load. the underly wall needs to be in good order though.

The head and reveals are probably plasterboard, dot and dabbed to the substrate. "No Nails" will piss it. And you rightly say there are other makes.

 

[rgjbloke]

A lot of old houses in Yorkshire have sandstone lintels, built before the days of structural steel.

I suspect most of them will have exceptionally large lintels made of sandstone that would possibly in some instances probably take two blokes to lift into place to do the job.

I also suspect that many of those houses wouldn’t have cavity walls to support. A solid wall without a cavity is much less likely to collapse than a cavity wall is.

 

[OneTenner]

No they don't! Your "plain old steel wire" would pull straight through the concrete and defeat the whole purpose of reinforcement - which is to make sure that the lintel can withstand bending pressure put upon it.

The reinforcement mats have lateral ribs that ensure that the concrete has a good hold and is called "B" steel. The corner re-bar rods have, in addition to lateral ribs, also side ribs that wind their way around the length of the rod and are called "B" steel. What you might mean is smooth steel rod (called "A" steel) that is sometimes used to further strengthen the weight-bearing ends of wide large concrete roof spans.

Ho hum, starting an argument where none should exist - how very unlike you.

Take an average domestic concrete lintel to bits - or a concrete fence post for that matter, it will have plain drawn steel reinforcing in it, the strength is in the folding at the ends so it becomes 'tensile' (along with a few other things the GDR construction spies never told you) The reinforcing is typically in one length but folded, if it is large enough, then it has hoops to hold it in place whilst the concrete is poured and allowed to cure.
What you are attempting to describe are reinforcement pads and structures used in large construction projects where bending moments and shear forces are far larger and more complex than holding the brickwork above a window in place.....

 

[4(T)]

Thanks for the reply. Presumably you mean attaching a batten over the lintel, but ensuring its wider so the batten can be screwed into the brick, and then the curtain poles mounted on that?

No, obviously for a neat job you'd want the pole in the centreline of the batten, and the pole/ batten location will still have to be determined by the length of curtains you want to put up. Usually the batten will have to be somewhere at lintel height because you usually have about 6" of curtain above the window aperture.

The batten really just allows you to make a pig's ear of drilling the holes because the screw heads in the batten can be hidden with filler and paint. If you try to drill a precise line of holes for direct attachment of the pole brackets, then things get tricky.

A lintel usually extends about 6" or so beyond the window aperture, so you can extend the ends of a batten just far enough to get a strong deep fixing in brick at the ends, but without the batten/pole looking too wide for the window.

Battens are also good when you are trying to mount a pole on old lime plaster walls, where a drill hole can quickly become a crumbling crater.

 

[964ST]

The head and reveals are probably plasterboard, dot and dabbed to the substrate. "No Nails" will piss it. And you rightly say there are other makes.

I use „GASH“ its the incredibly „hard to move remnants“ of Gonerreah, Aids, Syphillys and Herpes. It will NEVER “Let Go!!“

 

[DaManBugs]

Ho hum, starting an argument where none should exist - how very unlike you.

Take an average domestic concrete lintel to bits - or a concrete fence post for that matter, it will have plain drawn steel reinforcing in it, the strength is in the folding at the ends so it becomes 'tensile' (along with a few other things the GDR construction spies never told you) The reinforcing is typically in one length but folded, if it is large enough, then it has hoops to hold it in place whilst the concrete is poured and allowed to cure.
What you are attempting to describe are reinforcement pads and structures used in large construction projects where bending moments and shear forces are far larger and more complex than holding the brickwork above a window in place.....

So that's your, er, theory, is it? Nice! Carry on.

MsG

 

[OneTenner]

I suspect most of them will have exceptionally large lintels made of sandstone that would possibly in some instances probably take two blokes to lift into place to do the job.

I also suspect that many of those houses wouldn’t have cavity walls to support. A solid wall without a cavity is much less likely to collapse than a cavity wall is.

Well done Poirot Clouseau, your suspicions are correct - although even two Yorkshiremen might struggle to lift ~200kg of sandstone lintel. The walls tend to be of stone rather than brick, even post ind. rev. except for mill houses, these still have stone lintels though, not much in tems of insulating cavities but plenty of air bricks.

 

[Harryc]

Fheck all that drill this, drill that use gorrilla grip. You only got to hold it in place for 3 to 5 minutes and job jobbed.