Hi,
I am in the process of making my fireplace bigger. I have removed the brickwork and have come accross an arch of bricks. I assume this must be a lintel of some kind as the arch is made up of two rows of bricks with a curved bit of steel sitting under the bottom of the arch.
The bricks sitting directly on the curved steel appear to be fine but the second row of arched bricks (the ones not sitting on the steel) are in a sorry state - there are gaps, bricks missing, cracked bricks and many of the bricks have broken in half!!
I am quite worried about this - do i need to reinforce these bricks with concrete and fill in the gaps or do i need to do something else???!!!!
Any advice would be great! :)