RETROFIT – how to support brick veneer with bracket angle / steel lintel
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Hello,
We have a small renovation project. We are adding 2″ of rigid insulation to the exterior.
This is pushing the brick veneer past the existing concrete foundation. So we need to find a way to support the masonry with a steel lintel.
I have seen stuff like this for large commercial projects. Does anyone have any solutions that could be obtained from a big box store?
https://www.ancon.com.au/products/masonry-support/bracket-angle-support
My other idea is to cast small footings and span the lintel between them. But it would be great to find a solution that supports the masonry from the sheathing.
we only need like 40′ linear ft.
Thanks,
Ryan
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Replies
Ryan,
You've got a few options. In order of 'ease', if you will. You've probably come across this document, but if you haven't, it has details for what you've mentioned.
https://www.gobrick.com/docs/default-source/read-research-documents/technicalnotes/tn-28a-2020-03.pdf?sfvrsn=2
1. Use a thin brick veneer over steel lath and scratch coat. This will let you secure the lath through to the studs with an appropriate fastener schedule, and avoids all the fuss otherwise.
2. Mega steel angle attached to the footing. There's nothing really special about the angle that many people use for this, it's just beefy enough to avoid deflection out of plane. I'd consider this a better option than pouring a new footing. It saves work, and I doubt you'd ever really be able to pin the new footing to the old well enough to truly tie them together.
3. Pour an extension to the footing. Excavate, compact, gravel, compact, drill into the old footing, epoxy in rebar, new rebar for the new footing, concrete, finishing, curing, etc.
Thanks for the thorough response, I really like the thin brick veneer strategy.
I used the thin brick method for some brick details over exterior rigid on my home. Instead of lath it went over exterior rated cement board fastened to the rain screen strapping. Pretty simple to do and has held up well.
Which did you use? I've used Durok outside (in the south) that seems to be holding up well. I recently put up some Wonderboard and while it seems very similar, I haven't got much data to go on yet.