Evening all I’m in need of advice.

I’ve taken all the infill out of this fireplace (don’t have an up to date picture) and the arch which forms the top of the opening only extends to the edges. If you look at the right hand side on the picture you can see it just ends and isn’t supported from underneath in any way. My question is, will it stay up like that? I’ve filled in that gap with a bit of brick and mortar so it can be plastered.

Hole by NorthernMatt, on Flickr

as long as you stay behind that sofa you should be ok.

That sofa is going, it will be replaced by something similar, hopefully in a different position and orientation.

I would guess a fair bit of the load is spread around the side, which looks complete. The load with bricks spreads diagonally down, so fans out a lot once you get a few courses lower. If in doubt, you could brace it with some steel band, before plastering over?

It’s obviously been bricked up in the past and therefore will have taken the weight at some point but I would ask someone to come round and double check it is still sound just to make sure.

It looks to me that whoever bricked in that fireplace keyed the top course or two of infill into the wall at the side. So they didn’t trust the arch, and left you a problem if the end bricks of the arch aren’t properly supported.

I had a similar fireplace, but not knocked about like that. The arch looked iffy, so the builder fitted a curved steel support right underneath. It was bent to fit by use of a kerbstone and the builder’s transit’s front wheel.

When you unblocked it, did you notice if there was any load on the bricks you removed and have any cracks appeared in the mortar above. If not, then it’s probably fine….

No cracks have developed while I’ve been taking it out. I took that first half out before I’d removed the plaster and no cracks appeared in the plaster. As I was taking the infill out none of bricks seemed to be under any load as they all came out pretty easily, some actually fell out (onto my hand, got scratches to prove it!).

@slowoldgit. The top course wasn’t keyed in at all. That little gap and a matching one on the other side were just filled with some very crumbly mortar hence why it came out. I’ve pulled on the arch a bit to make sure that none of the bricks are loose and it all seems solid.

Might make some enquiries about a bent bit of steel to go under it.

You could just brace the RH corner with a piece of 6mm steel plate bent at the right angle. Bolts into side and arch to stop the arch collapsing. Run it say 30cm down the side, with a bolt in each brick.

Structural engineer recommended a similar thing to keep my gable end from detaching in the case of subsidence, as the mix of imperial and metric bricks / blocks made it impossible to interlock the courses.

OTT Gable Restraint brackets by brf, on Flickr

Double ring segmented arch out of headers. Solid 9″ jambs up either side. It’s going nowhere.

Him ^ +1
Whatever he said, sounds technical , will be right that
(puts on Dibnah voice) d’yer lik’ tha’ luv

It’d be down by now otherwise 😉