Lintel repair in Fayetteville: the stair-step crack above your window

The National Park Service says cracks around openings come from failing lintels or arches, sagging wood lintels in older walls and steel lintels that rust. Your wall could be any of the three.

That is the first question for a mason: what is over this opening, and how do you know? A mason who says steel without looking behind the brick is guessing.

The answer can change from one window to the next. Note which window you mean in your request, and photograph the opening from inside as well as outside.

Ask how the brick above will be held while an old lintel comes out. A contractor who has done this will answer without a pause, and will tell you what holds the wall up in the meantime.

Rust scale takes up far more room than the steel it grew from, up to ten times by one engineering firm's count. That swelling splits and lifts the brick above the opening, and the trade calls it rust jacking.

The Brick Industry Association calls for continuous flashing over the lintel angle, with weepholes at the same level to drain water out. Without them, water sits on the steel.

Ask whether the repair includes flashing and weeps, or only a new lintel. What each answer means is covered in cracks that start at a window corner.

The same engineers say corrosion is limited by keeping the wall in good condition, which includes repointing joints. If rust or lift is present, filling a lintel crack alone can seal water in with the rust.

Before any filler goes in, ask what will be opened up, how the steel is checked and who sets the work. Because the village codes officer wants owners to phone first, ask whether this repair needs a permit. Then send us the photos you took, and tell each contractor the same story.

A lintel scope worth signing names the lintel type, the flashing, the number of courses rebuilt and the mortar. If a quote only says crack repair, ask what the contractor assumes is behind the brick.