brick arches

[plasticpigeon]

Hello fellow building enthusiasts.

I live in a modest 3 bed terrace in Birmingham. Although modest it is quite charming, but is also in a poor state. It seems that some of the sash windows have moved back from their reveals and as part of the repair of the house I would like to reseat all the windows that have moved and repace the scotia moulding around the perimeter of the window. I will also want to pull a couple of them out to repair them. I have hacked off the plaster in places and I really don't think there are any lintels over the windows. There are brick arches over the windows though which I guess act as relieving arches. The window boxes have horns extending about 6" either side of the window which makes me wonder if the top of the sash boxes are acting as lintels to some extent. Does anyone have experience of this type of construction and is it safe to remove the window?

 

[LadyArowana]

Some pictures might be helpful

 

[Feltwell]

I'm presuming your place is Victorian. In most (but not all) cases this means that you'll have solid 9" brick walls, with sashes in a box frame sat behind the front 4 1/2" of brick. In my experience the usual construction is that the sash box sits behind either a stone lintel or a brick arch on the outside, which can plainly be seen. These are a structural, load bearing item.

The inner 4 1/2" of brick usually has a wooden lintel above the sash box, hidden internally by plaster, and there may be a gap between it and the sash box. Thus the sash box is not structurally integral to the wall and can be removed with no problems. There is however the possibility that the wooden lintel has decayed to the point where the sash box is taking some weight, but generally you'd see this in other ways such as the internal plaster being very loose or cracked.

Sometimes the sash box sits inside a reveal so you can see all the sash box, but it's not that common, at least not round here. I have seen a brick arch used on the internal 4 1/2" of brick as well as external, instead of a wooden lintel, but again it's structural and your sash box can come out with no problems.

As Lady A says, pictures on these type of questions are always valuable.

 

[plasticpigeon]

Yes of course, I will put a pic up tomorrow. The house is very early Edwardian (1904), definitely 9" walls with the sash boxes behind a 4 1/2" reveal. The brick arch is obvious from the outside. I took some plaster off on the inside as it is falling off anyway, and I'm certain I can see the arch on the inside too. Certainly no wooden lintel which is what I was expecting. I think the bricks in the arch are 9" and span the thickness of the 9" wall.

 

[Feltwell]

Taking your post above and:-

There are brick arches over the windows though which I guess act as relieving arches.

The brick arches, if properly constructed and in good repair, take the full weight of the wall above - no need for a lintel at all. I don't see any problem with a "full depth" 9" arch, in fact it's better than an internal wooden lintel as you won't have any problems with rot!

Post some pictures up anyway though, we like to see! I guess the builder may have put some extra brickwork under the arch and above the sash box, just to fill the gap, and if so this would of course only be supported by the sash box. But they may equally have shoved a bit of wood in there or if the arch is not too curved just covered the gap with some architrave round the sash box.

 

[Penners]

The brick arches, if properly constructed and in good repair, take the full weight of the wall above - no need for a lintel at all.

Quite right. A properly made brick arch is immensely strong. Don't worry about a lack of additional lintels.

 

[Lime]

Hello fellow building enthusiasts.

I live in a modest 3 bed terrace in Birmingham. Although modest it is quite charming, but is also in a poor state. It seems that some of the sash windows have moved back from their reveals and as part of the repair of the house I would like to reseat all the windows that have moved and repace the scotia moulding around the perimeter of the window. I will also want to pull a couple of them out to repair them. I have hacked off the plaster in places and I really don't think there are any lintels over the windows. There are brick arches over the windows though which I guess act as relieving arches. The window boxes have horns extending about 6" either side of the window which makes me wonder if the top of the sash boxes are acting as lintels to some extent. Does anyone have experience of this type of construction and is it safe to remove the window?

You may be right in saying that the horns on the top of the window frame may act as a lintel.
However directly above the frame is an 9 inch structural arch which means the lintel does not have much load to carry.
Alternatively the horns may be a method of holding the window in place.
Without a detailed picture the whole situation cannot be accurately ascertained.

 

[plasticpigeon]

Hello

Here are some pic of my brick arches, you lucky people. I have put in pink where I think the arch goes on the inside. I know it isn't clear but it is possible to see just the top corner of the arch just within the top left corner of the pink outline I have drawn. This window is about 15 cm too far back in its surround. However I think it may have been built that way as the original brown lime plaster extends all the way to the architrave without a gap. There is also an extra strip of wood nailed around the window on the front to fill the gap between the sash box and the brickwork. The other pic is just to give and idea what is going on. The front windows have stone lintels on the outside, haven't a clue what is on the inside if anything.

It is only a small house, but round here the larger more impressive houses sometimes get treated with respect, but the smaller houses get ripped to pieces (see the neighbouring houses!), so I am trying to keep it as original as possible. There is also much less info about decor and features of working class homes from this period than the features of larger houses. All I know is that the internal door frames were originally chocolate brown as I have a door frame that was boxed in to make a different door frame at 90 degrees to it, and the wood that was covered seems to have chocolate brown as the only layer of paint. Also one of my neighbours has a rental agreement from when it was built and she says the walls had to be whitewashed!!!! Surprising as the place would originally have had gas lights as there are gas pipes in all the walls. I don't think i will be using chocolate brown for the wood, but at least I can keep the fabric of the house as was.

 

[plasticpigeon]

1910

 

[stuart45]

That type of arch usually goes through the wall on 9 inch work, whereas the camber arch usually only supports the front with a timber lintel at the back.

 

[plasticpigeon]

Thanks for the confirmation Stuart. Does this mean taking the window out is not a problem?

 

[Feltwell]

This window is about 15 cm too far back in its surround. However I think it may have been built that way as the original brown lime plaster extends all the way to the architrave without a gap. There is also an extra strip of wood nailed around the window on the front to fill the gap between the sash box and the brickwork.

I can't see why you think it's too far back, unless I'm missing something from only seeing the pictures. The architrave on the inside is usually nailed directly to the sash box - if the sash box was 15cm / 6" too far back, the architrave would be 6" proud of the plaster.

Why do you want to take them out? OK, we can't see the cill from the pictures (which is the usual bit to suffer) but they look to be in pretty good nick to me, probably better than mine, which I've repaired in-situ. If the cill is completely shot then there is an argument to take the sash box out to replace it properly, but if it's minor local rot then linseed putty as a filler and linseed paint over does a good repair that, for me at least, seems to be lasting well. If there's no need to remove them then I'd leave them where they are.

You say you want to replace the moulding on the inside - by which I presume you mean the architrave. I really, really wouldn't, unless it's completely trashed. The nicks and marks of years of the house being in use are a big part of it's character. My house is a semi, in the early 90's the other half was "restored" by an owner who was a builder, not a particularly good one. It got the usual cement pointing and gypsum plaster everywhere treatment, new windows (which were at least sashes in the style of the originals) and new skirting and architrave throughout, made to the original patterns - cost him a fortune.

Compared to mine, in my not so humble opinion, it's ruined much of the character of the place. It's too perfect - no sign of 100 years of use - and all the interesting details, like the old catches on the original sashes, have gone. My internal doors have rim locks on them, which have the original paint still with signs of wear and a bit of light rust - they look old. Chap next door sanded them down and painted them in shiny black paint to look like new.

I'll put a picture up later to illustrate my point.

The front windows have stone lintels on the outside, haven't a clue what is on the inside if anything.

Stone was pricey stuff, so the chances are it only goes back as far as the first half of the wall and you'll have either a timber lintel or a brick arch on the inside, which is fine.

Nice house by the way. Makes you weep if you find nice old pictures of streets like that, compared to what they often look like now. I'm desperate for an old picture of this place, the best I've managed to get is an aerial picture from the 1950's, but it doesn;t show the house in any detail. The only other old pictures I have are of the brewery behind (to which this place was the company secretary's house) in dereliction in the 1970's and then being demolished

 

[Feltwell]

Here's what I mean by why you should keep the original architrave if you possibly can.

First off, here's a new cupboard made by yours truly about a year ago.

It's a neat enough job, even if I say so myself. There was no cupboard there originally, just a blank wall, behind which was a large empty void in the eaves of the roof (hence the funny shaped door). It now provides some much needed storage space in my daughter's bedroom, as we have no loft to speak of.

The architrave is an exact copy of what is used elsewhere on the floor, and the door is made from pine floorboards that have been planed and given a "V" on their edges, as per an original door elsewhere on that floor. I left the shrinkage crack in on purpose, and the pine door will darken considerably with time.

Below is an original cupboard door. To my mind it is considerably more attractive than my new one above - the architrave and wall need decorating, the door itself needs the varnish taking off, but it's "faults" and marks from >100 years of use and repeated re-decoration give it a lot more character than my new "flawless" one. The door of course would have been painted originally - I didn't strip it, but I like it as bare wood. I tend to regard decoration as a transient thing, others on here would strongly disagree!

I could have bashed my new one about a bit to "age" it, but that's just false, I'd rather leave it to age in naturally. From the inside anyone in the future can tell it's a later alteration to the house.

 

[stuart45]

Thanks for the confirmation Stuart. Does this mean taking the window out is not a problem?

As regards to the brickwork above the window it shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Penners]

Plastic pigeon - I can't see anything abnormal about your window arrangements. In your shoes I would have no worries about proceeding to take out the window frame(s). I would proceed step-by-step, starting with removing the architrave mouldings, and exposing the interior face of the whole window frame. That way you can satisfy yourself that the interior lintel arrangements are satisfactory before you actually take the frame out.

Just promise us that you'll repair and reinstate the original windows! NO uPVC PLEASE!

 

[Feltwell]

I'm just a bit concerned Penners that the architrave may get broken unnecessarily during removal - it's easy enough to break it - and question the need to remove the window at all. Apart from complete cill replacement, there's not much on a sash that can't be done with it in-situ and frankly I think it's easier when to work on when it's held nice and firmly in a wall!

 

[plasticpigeon]

Hello. Don't worry Feltwell, everything is going to be kept. Most of the windows even have rolled glass in them and there is no way I am replacing them. I am not replacing any architrave unless it is broken. In fact I salvaged a load of architrave and skirting from a house down the road that was being gutted. The builder doing the house told me I was mad and I should buy new stuff from b and q, but that is the Philistine attitude round here. He even junked the stained glass in the front inner door as it was a bit broken and got rid of all internal woodwork (even floors and doors) as he said the house had woodworm, but I digress.

If you look at the picture of the window from the outside there is a scotia moulding all the way around which covers the gap between the sash box and the brickwork. I'm not sure of the terminology but the moulding is nailed to the piece of wood that encloses the weights on the front face. I guess it could be called the pulley stile lining or something like that. On the uprights there is an extra 15mm piece of wood between the moulding and the lining to cover the increased gap. You can just see on the top corners that they don't really line up. In fact this window is pretty good, even the sill. I just wan't to push it back into the right place. However although the wood has survived the years quite well, the nails holding the windows together have not and the boxes are coming apart in places, especially the back lining of the box adjacent to the brickwork which is actually a number of diagonal strips of wood, some of which have fallen off. There is another window at the back which is very rotten as the house has subsided a bit and the lozenged hole has let water in rotting the sill and bottoms of the pulley stiles so I definitely want to pull that one out.

Your cupboard looks very nice. It does look new, but I think that is fine. I like to keep things original, but am more drawn to old houses due to their style rather than age. If houses were built to be as attractive now then I would probably buy a new house!!!!!

Also I am looking for architrave like that for upstairs in my house. I'd be very grateful if you could let me know the width of that architrave and where you got it from.

 

[Feltwell]

Fair enough. I tend to think of removing windows for repair as being a last resort!

The architrave was machined up for me - it's a local pattern specific to 1 long since closed joinery shop in this small town, so it's highly unlikely to be an exact match to what you have. More than happy to let you have details if you like, but it would be much cheaper if you can find something from the likes of Dressers.

http://www.dressermouldings.com/products/mouldings.html

I'm not sure you need to worry too much about the back lining of the box in the window, so long as some of it survives and the weights aren't catching on anything. It's quite likely that your window was never screwed or nailed in place by the way - they were often just wedged in place, and some folks still think that is the best way to fix windows in now. Whatever way you choose to fix it back in, be careful not to distort the box otherwse the sashes can stick. I presume whilst you're doing this work you will upgrade the parting and staff beads to ones with brush seals in - well worth doing, keeps the draughts out and makes the sashes slide a lot more easily. I'd machine the meeting rail and put a brush in there as well whilst you've got the sashes out.

 

[Lime]

I've taken out dozens of sash windows to repair.
They are a pleasure to work on and of such simple construction.
When the frame is out it is simple to replace the entire outer face (the bit the usually goes rotten next to the sill) top to bottom.
The sill can be replaced too if need be.
The sill is the only major departure I make fron the original in that I use a hardwood.

With the sash frame out it is possible to repair the stone/brick/mortar/whatever hidden under the wooden window sill too.
Over the years it has usually degraded and is often an area where water can leak in easily.
Good design has a weather bar installed.