Openings in Manlius: Which Fifth of the Town Has Steel
About a fifth of this town comes from the bare steel decades. On the rest, a crack over a window is usually something else.
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Sorting a Manlius opening by its decade
22.3 percent of the Town of Manlius was built between 1940 and 1959, against 50.9 percent of the village built across the 1960s and 1970s. So roughly a fifth of the addresses here sit in the era of the bare steel angle over openings, and most of the rest went up when flashing over a lintel was expected. That makes the decade the first question and the rust stain the second, and it is why we would rather see a photograph of the window head than quote from a description of the crack.
What lintel repair involves
The cheapest thing you can do about steel in a wall
If there is steel in your wall, the published prevention is maintenance rather than intervention: the rate and extent of corrosion can be limited by keeping the exterior wall in serviceable condition so less water infiltrates it, which typically means repointing masonry joints, installing sealant repairs as appropriate and repairing cracks regularly. That is the cheap end of this trade and it is the end almost nobody gets offered. The expensive end starts once the brick above an opening has moved, and by then the choice is no longer yours.
Repointing and sealant are the prevention
On preventing corrosion damage to steel engaged in a masonry wall, the engineering view is that the rate and extent can be limited by maintaining the wall to minimize water infiltration, typically by repointing joints, installing sealant repairs as appropriate and repairing cracks in the masonry regularly.
A fifth of the town, and half the village is younger
The Town of Manlius is 22.3 percent 1940 to 1959 housing on a median of 1972, while the village inside it has 50.9 percent built across the 1960s and 1970s on a median of 1968. So the bare angle belongs to a minority of addresses here and the decade sorts them faster than anything else.
Manlius on the county's lintel ranking
On the 1940 to 1959 ranking the Town of Manlius sits at 22.3 percent, well below Galeville at 60.7, Mattydale at 54.6 and Fairmount at 42.7. Worth knowing before anybody tells you this is the county's great masonry problem and that your house has it.
22.3 percent of the town, and what protects the steel
On prevention, the article states that while preventing corrosion-related damage to steel members engaged within a masonry exterior wall can be challenging, the rate and extent of corrosion can be limited by maintaining the exterior wall in serviceable condition to minimize the amount of water infiltrating the wall, and that such maintenance typically includes repointing masonry joints, installing sealant repairs as appropriate, and repairing cracks in the masonry regularly.
Source: Deborah Slaton and David S. Patterson, AIA, both of Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Expanding on structural steel, Failures column, The Construction Specifier, Construction Specifications Institute, December 7 2018, accessed 2026-09-10
The Town of Manlius has 14,524 housing units with a median year of construction of 1972, a pre-1940 share of 11.2 percent and 22.3 percent built between 1940 and 1959. Manlius village inside it has 2,070 units, a median of 1968, a pre-1940 share of 10.5 percent and 50.9 percent built in the 1960s and 1970s. Fayetteville village has 2,092 units, a median of 1961, a pre-1940 share of 20.7 percent, 26.8 percent built between 1940 and 1959 and 77.2 percent built before 1980.
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020-2024 5-year estimates, table B25034 Year Structure Built and table B25035 Median Year Structure Built, accessed 2026-09-10
Ranked instead by the share of housing built between 1940 and 1959, the era in which steel angle lintels over openings became standard in brick and brick-veneer houses, the county orders itself completely differently: Galeville 60.7 percent, Seneca Knolls 58.9, Mattydale 54.6, Westvale 51.3, Lyncourt 47.1, Fairmount 42.7, North Syracuse village 38.5, Geddes town 37.1, Salina town 35.0, Solvay village 31.3, Camillus town 30.4, Liverpool village 27.1, Fayetteville village 26.8, East Syracuse village 26.4, DeWitt town 25.6, the City of Syracuse 23.3, Manlius town 22.3, Cicero town 19.7, Baldwinsville village 17.3, Marcellus town 15.1, Skaneateles village 13.1 and Clay town 12.8.
Source: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020-2024 5-year estimates, table B25034 Year Structure Built and table B25035 Median Year Structure Built, accessed 2026-09-10
Which decade, and is there a stain?
Send the Manlius address with the build year and a photograph of the window head. Those two sort it quickly.
Other Manlius work around a window or door
Window heads: what Manlius owners ask
Our house is from 1974. Should we worry about lintels?
Less than a neighbor from 1952 should. By the 1970s flashing over openings was expected and galvanized steel was common, so the bare unprotected angle that causes most of this trouble is largely a mid-century feature. What is still worth doing on a 1970s house is keeping the joints above the openings sound, because the published prevention for any steel in a masonry wall is simply keeping water out of the wall. That is cheap maintenance rather than a project.
What is the cheapest thing we can do about this?
Repointing the joints over and around the openings, sealing where sealant belongs, and repairing cracks as they appear. That is not our sales pitch, it is the published prevention: corrosion of steel engaged in a masonry wall is limited by maintaining the wall so less water infiltrates it. Done before the course above an opening moves, it keeps you out of the expensive version of this repair altogether.
Get a Manlius opening checked while it is cheap
A crack from a top corner, a stain on the brick, joints open above a window: describe it with the address, no obligation.