Big Tool Posted March 9, 2015 Report Posted March 9, 2015 Hello all, first time poster. I'm having a similar issue as the OP. Newer home under 10yrs old. Brick lintels are rusting and causing some very minor stair cracks in the mortar. In the process of buying a new home so we are prepping this one to sale. Or possibly to keep long term as a rental. Either way I want it fixed. Obviously not interested in tearing out the brick lintels around the entire house. If the issue is moisture going through the brick and collecting on the lintels why not paint the visible rust with rustoleum, and then seal the masonry to prevent water from penetrating the brick? Seems like a pretty obvious solution but I don't see any mention of it. I've used masonry sealer on previous projects and it works like a charm. Why wouldn't it work in this situation??
Jim Katen Posted March 9, 2015 Report Posted March 9, 2015 . . . If the issue is moisture going through the brick and collecting on the lintels why not paint the visible rust with rustoleum, and then seal the masonry to prevent water from penetrating the brick? Because the rust that you can see isn't the rust that causing the problem. It's the rust that's embedded in the brick that's the issue. You can't effectively seal brick veneer. It's just not possible. Water *will* get behind it and then the sealer will just serve to slow the drying process. Seems like a pretty obvious solution but I don't see any mention of it. I've used masonry sealer on previous projects and it works like a charm. Why wouldn't it work in this situation?? Masonry sealer doesn't do what you think it does.
Big Tool Posted March 9, 2015 Report Posted March 9, 2015 Jim, Thanks for responding. Do you have any recommendations other than tearing out the lintels and replacing? I have weep holes around the bottom of the house but none around the lintels. Would it be advisable to add weeping holes? First and foremost I want to avoid creating a larger issue. We just finished up painting all the lintels more as cosmetic fix. It's odd because the front two window lintels and the large lintel that spans the garage door appear to be just angle iron. These had light rust over the entire surface of the lintel. It was actually dripping rusty water down on the garage door trim and one of the front windows. The rest of the house has lintels that have a slight hump in the middle if that makes any sense at all. They aren't flat. These appear to have a layer of black primer/paint and have light rust here and there.
Marc Posted March 9, 2015 Report Posted March 9, 2015 Biloxi's on the Gulf coast. That aggravates the corrosion. The only issue I've ever seen in regard to rusting lintels is that the expanding corrosion lifts the brick above it slightly, causing a crack. It's cosmetic. Post a photo or two. Marc
kurt Posted March 9, 2015 Report Posted March 9, 2015 It is just angle iron. That hump in the middle is the horizontal flange warping because the vertical flange is probably rusted badly, delaminated, and it's torquing the horizontal flange.
Jim Katen Posted March 9, 2015 Report Posted March 9, 2015 Jim, Thanks for responding. Do you have any recommendations other than tearing out the lintels and replacing? If the cracking is minor, just repair the cracks. At some point, the cracking will become quite severe and, at that point, the only real solution will be to replace the lintels. I have weep holes around the bottom of the house but none around the lintels. Would it be advisable to add weeping holes? Weep holes won't do any good without flashing. The flashing should cover the lintels and direct the water into the weep holes. First and foremost I want to avoid creating a larger issue. We just finished up painting all the lintels more as cosmetic fix. It's odd because the front two window lintels and the large lintel that spans the garage door appear to be just angle iron. These had light rust over the entire surface of the lintel. It was actually dripping rusty water down on the garage door trim and one of the front windows. The rest of the house has lintels that have a slight hump in the middle if that makes any sense at all. They aren't flat. These appear to have a layer of black primer/paint and have light rust here and there. As Kurt said, they're all just angle iron. If some of them have a hump, then it's because the angle is distorted.
kurt Posted March 9, 2015 Report Posted March 9, 2015 From what I'm intuiting from the thread, you've got punk iron angles lacking flashing in a corrosive salt environment. That's a formula for despair. "Repairing" the cracks is a red herring. It will make you feel good and it might even look better for a while. Doesn't do anything to slow down rust. Lintels are glacial. Slow, with thousands of pounds of force, inexorable, w/the exception climate change doesn't slow down rust.
kurt Posted March 9, 2015 Report Posted March 9, 2015 Biloxi's on the Gulf coast. That aggravates the corrosion. It's cosmetic. Post a photo or two. Marc It's called "lintel jack". Cosmetic, sort of, maybe, if you're a seller, or if it's just a few years you have to look at it. More than a few years, it gets really cosmetic. It gets so cosmetic you have to tear it out and replace the lintels.
Marc Posted March 9, 2015 Report Posted March 9, 2015 I made the mistake of assuming it's a one-story home. Is it a 2 story? Marc
Big Tool Posted March 10, 2015 Report Posted March 10, 2015 The home actually sits approximately 60 miles inland so the salt water corrosion factor isn't really a issue. Biloxi was just the nearest recognizable city. It is a single story home. @Kurt They are definitely formed with a bend. It's very uniform on all the lintels except the front 3 that are just angle iron and were very rusty. On the ones with the hump I was describing there was only very minor surface rust. It looks like they are formed with a slight bend downwards as if to drain moisture downwards where as angle just sits flat. Click to Enlarge 50.29 KB
Big Tool Posted March 10, 2015 Report Posted March 10, 2015 On a side note, what exactly should I be looking for on the new house I'm purchasing. It has galvanized "shiny silver" metal lintels. I've never seen a house locally with weep holes around the windows or flashing. Could someone post a photo showing what I should be looking for?
Marc Posted March 10, 2015 Report Posted March 10, 2015 It is a single story home.... Then it's cosmetic. There's no need for alarm, IMHO. That stuff can corroded that way for half a century more before it's deserving of replacement. 2 story is different. Marc
Jim Katen Posted March 10, 2015 Report Posted March 10, 2015 The home actually sits approximately 60 miles inland so the salt water corrosion factor isn't really a issue. Biloxi was just the nearest recognizable city. It is a single story home. @Kurt They are definitely formed with a bend. It's very uniform on all the lintels except the front 3 that are just angle iron and were very rusty. On the ones with the hump I was describing there was only very minor surface rust. It looks like they are formed with a slight bend downwards as if to drain moisture downwards where as angle just sits flat. Click to Enlarge 50.29 KB That's not angle iron. The weasels used flat stock.
mgbinspect Posted March 10, 2015 Report Posted March 10, 2015 @Big Tool, If you have a few more pictures to post of both the steel and the openings, I can probably shed some light on the construction - if you're interested. Regarding the work of lintels in general, in most cases the hardest a window or door lintel ever works is the day that it's loaded with green masonry (all dead and completely saturated weight). If a steel lintel is going to deflect it will be that day. Sometimes undersized lintels will merely twist outward in the center causing a belly in the brickwork. And on rare occasions the lintel would twist enough to literally dump the masonry on the catwalk before it ever set up. (Architects or Builders are notorious for selecting undersized lintels.) It's helpful to understand that steel within a masonry system almost never deflects after installation. It can't without massive "tell-tale" cracks in the masonry. (Masonry does have some flex thanks to the mortar, but it's not as flexible as steel.) With all this in mind, you will most often notice that most bulged brickwork on twisted steel shows little or very minor cracking - because it all happened while the world was green. Once the masonry IS set up. The lintel could be removed with no immediate consequence whatsoever as long as there is substantial masonry above. The half bond pattern carries the weight across the opening in a matter of courses leaving only a small triangular area directly over the opening more hanging from the masonry above than supported by anything below. Masonry is so durable. Just picture the bombed out buildings in Europe after WWII with 1/3 of the masonry blown away and still standing. What appears to be flat steel might be a "hung-plate" attached to the underside of an I-Beam. Or the masonry might actually be laid on the bottom flange of an I-Beam. In these cases, steel is flexible and masonry not so flexible. Cracks are inevitable. More pictures would make it a little easier to decide what's really going on. All the best!
kurt Posted March 10, 2015 Report Posted March 10, 2015 Sure looks like flat stock. So, punk iron flat stock. Is this hump we're talking about upwards or downwards? Mike's right about the support. We yank lintels all the time...just take out enough brick to get the lintel out. We pull a lot that are completely gone, nothing left. Brick above is only deformed from lintel jack, not settlement. Cosmetic lintel deterioration must be peculiar to the south. Up here, rust and delam means the lintels are going bad, and the number of stories doesn't effect anything. If one wants to live with cracks and let them go and not replace them, it just means one will live with cracks, has let them go, and has chosen to not replace them. Rust and delam continue regardless of how I feel about it. Southern iron must be different than northern iron.
Marc Posted March 10, 2015 Report Posted March 10, 2015 It's the same iron, I'm sure. On a one story, only a few courses are above the lintel (if it's an 8' ceiling) before it disappears into the cornice cavity. Nothing sits on top of it and the whole thing is only a veneer anyway, so I tell my clients such and let them decide if they want to pay a considerable cost to get rid of a few harmless cracks. Never heard of any doing so. Nice to hear from Mike B. again. Marc
mgbinspect Posted March 10, 2015 Report Posted March 10, 2015 Thanks Mark! Yep, I tell folks basically the same thing regarding brick veneer: It's just an incredibly durable super high PSI rated facade - a siding. Relax!
jweiser24 Posted April 1, 2015 Report Posted April 1, 2015 I am having a similar issue to the original poster. I have stair-step cracks in the brick veneer above two first-floor windows. The cracks are barely noticeable with the naked eye. I am not super-concerned about those, but I have attached a picture of where the brick is moving away from the window below the rusted lintel (possibly due to the corroded lintel). I will post more pictures this evening when I get home. I am OK with the cracks, but I want to make sure I am not going to lose part of my brick veneer. This issue was present 4 years ago, but unfortunately the previous homeowner passed away and I cannot get any more info about it. He was quoted $2k back in 2011 to sand, caulk, and paint the lintels and other areas of the exterior. This quote seems high to me, and I was wondering what you all would recommend. I will post more pictures later on today.
jweiser24 Posted April 1, 2015 Report Posted April 1, 2015 I am trying to upload photos, but it says "You must be logged in to use this feature". Any help?
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