Crack above patio door

It sounds like there isn't a lintel above your doors. I would think that its not a urgent job but would need looking at as it will eventualy bow the top of the doors and you will find it hard to open/close them. * How wide is the door opening and which area are you in.

Just to be on the safe side,i would get that looked at to check there is a lintel support fitted properly in place above your patio doors. Carl.

Get a good builder out to check if you have a good sized lintol and min 150mm bearing. A lot of houses were built years ago with no front lintols, as a lot of crittal windows were fitted, and relied on them to take the weight. A lot of people have come across this problem when having new windows fitted, ie upvc they cant take the weight, we are in fact fitting a lintol next week with the exact same problem, window fitters took out the old windows, fitted upvc and the top frame has now bowed, and caused cracks in the stone work.

has the patio door been changed recently? (how old is the house?) If so I would suggest that it may not have a lintel above and the new patio has been fitted with a gap above so the brickwork has dropped, if it has not been changed the it may be a little settlement in the house but your survey from when you bought the house should of picked this up.

in one word yes ,need to hack back plaster ,to see if its structural or not ,if it is wrong type lintel could have been installed

from what you say i am thinking the patio doors are directly below the window. if this is the case then the problem is the linel over the patio doors. you should see if the bedroom floor has dropped over the patio doors, if it has then its likely that its a small issue. but i would think of tempory support of the bedroom floor and then expose the linel and the padstones they should be sat on. Or it could be the foundations, either way call your building insurance and they usally send someone out you'll be covered that would indicate that the problem is the patio doors. this is where the crack started. there are some questions are the patio doors original ? is it a cavity wall ? can you see the crack from the inside? are there any other cracks around the house? does the crack go with the bricks or does it crack the brick? if you need a new linel would cost about £60. the type depends on the wall construction. a good builder should get it sorted just make sure they support the floor and fill any voids or gaps between the lintel and the wall with non shrink grout and they use metal shims and epoxy resin to level the new lintel, not cement and slates