Any masons or structural engineers about?
I need to go through the brick veneer (one wythe of solid brick) on the first story of my house to run an HVAC return duct into the addition that was put on the house (cheap builder didn't add any HVAC returns.) The veneer only covers the first story--the second story of the house is vinyl siding over sheathing. They got all the supply ducts over to the new side of the house by simply going over top of the brick part of the wall--the supply registers are in the ceiling of the downstairs and the floor of the upstairs. I'd like to put in two large returns--one low on the wall downstairs and one high on the wall upstairs--to help even things out.
Googling around it seems like many would say the relatively small opening (10" wide) doesn't necessitate a lintel since the brick is not actually supporting the house, but I do want to make the hole pretty close to the bottom of the wall, so perhaps the 8' or so of brick above it would be enough load to cause concerns. I don't like taking chances with masonry, but installing a lintel would make the project substantially more difficult. If no lintel is needed, I think renting a 10" core drill and just cutting a round hole might be the way to go.
