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[spriest]

Hi all, I'm looking for some advice about lintels in supporting walls. Several years ago a two storey extension was built on the side of my house. Up stairs there is a doorway into the extension through what was previously the outside cavity wall of the house. The door is standard size and the lintel is inserted approx 6 courses of bricks down from the ceiling. As part of a internal re-shuffle I am going to remove the door and frame to extend the hallway. I could leave the doorway as is but I would really like to raise the height of the opening. This would mean removing the current lintel and inserting a new lintel higher up. Is there limit on how high the lintel can be? For example, could I insert the lintel into the top course of bricks so that the lintel sits just below the ceiling joists? I not sure at the moment if this is a job I want to tackle myself, but just testing the water.

[thedoctor3]

You should be able to raise the lintel to any height. Remember it is a cavity wall so you probably have two lintels, one for each skin. The wall must be supported above the new lintel height before removing the bricks. You can do most of the labouring yourself but you should let a builder oversee this job.
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