This beautiful old building had serious masonry problems. We removed the bricks over every window in the building, installed a new steel lintel with flashing over every window, and re-installed the bricks.
Here’s one of the rusted lintels that we removed from the building above (the new primed steel lintel is on the bottom).
A lintel is a piece of steel that spans a masonry opening, usually a window or door and supports the bricks above it. Brick porches or balconies also incorporate lintels into their construction. Over time, lintels can rust and expand which pushes the bricks in the immediate area out of place. This is usually indicated by cracks in the mortar at the top edges of windows and doors. Lintels that are deteriorated should be removed and replaced before additional structural damage to the masonry wall occurs (bricks can suddenly just fall off the wall).
