Lintel Replacement in Cicero, IL — The Flashing Detail That Decides How Long It Lasts

Lintel Replacement in Cicero, IL

Lintel replacement in Cicero, IL means removing the corroded steel spanning a window, door or storefront opening, installing new primed steel, installing flashing above it, and rebuilding the brick it lifted. Emerald Masonry LLC does this work throughout Cook County — family-owned, licensed, bonded and insured, 40+ years of Chicagoland experience, free on-site estimates. Call (708) 288-1696.

Here is the part almost nobody mentions, and it is the part that decides whether you do this again in fifteen years.

Your old lintel rusted for a reason. Water was reaching it — through failed joints, a bad sill, a gap at the window perimeter, or simply the absence of anything directing water back out of the wall. Putting new steel into that same wall without changing anything about the water means the new steel starts corroding on day one.

Proper through-wall flashing above the lintel catches water inside the wall and sends it back out through weeps. It is the difference between a repair measured in decades and one measured in a decade and a half.

Every competing page we reviewed for this search explains that steel rusts and expands. None of them explain the flashing.

Why Steel Fails Inside a Wall

Brick cannot span an opening on its own. In Cicero's pre-1930 masonry, that job usually falls to a steel angle lintel bearing on the brick at each side.

Steel is entirely reliable until it gets wet. Then it corrodes — and rust occupies several times the volume of the metal it replaced. Inside a rigid brick wall there is nowhere for that expansion to go, so it pushes upward and outward, lifting the courses above the opening.

That is rust jacking, and it explains why a steel problem shows up as a horizontal crack in a mortar joint rather than as anything obviously metallic.

The staining you see is rust escaping. The problem is the rust that stayed inside.

The Progression

1. Water reaches the steel — through failed joints, a failed sill, cracked perimeter caulking, or no flashing at all.
2. Corrosion begins, hidden.
3. Rust staining appears on the brick below — the first visible sign, and the cheapest moment to act.
4. A horizontal crack opens in the joint above the opening.
5. Brick displaces — courses lift, mortar fails, units loosen.
6. Section loss means the lintel no longer reliably carries its load.

Signs Your Cicero Building Needs Lintel Work

• Orange or rust-colored staining running down from the top corners of an opening.
• A horizontal crack in the mortar joint directly above a window or door.
• Brick above an opening looking lifted, stepped or out of line.
• Visible rusted steel at the head of the opening, flaking or scaling.
• A sagging course above a wide span — storefronts and older double windows.
• Cracked or displaced brick at the corners of an opening.
• Windows sticking as the opening distorts.
• The same symptom on several openings — common here, because they are all the same age.
• Loose brick above an opening — treat this as urgent.

Why Cicero Specifically

Cicero is one of the densest municipalities in Illinois, and almost all of it is masonry.

The housing is overwhelmingly pre-1930 Chicago-style brick — two-flats and three-flats, worker cottages, bungalows, courtyard buildings and mixed-use blocks along Cermak, 22nd and Ogden. Steel angle lintels went into essentially every opening, and that steel is now ninety to a hundred and twenty years old.

Three local factors concentrate the problem:

Age. A century of Cook County freeze-thaw — dozens of crossings of the freezing point each winter — is a very long service life for embedded steel.

Original detailing. Much of this stock predates the routine use of through-wall flashing over lintels. There was frequently nothing directing water away from the steel to begin with.

Density. Twenty-five-foot lots, narrow gangways, party walls and buildings within a few feet of each other. That does not change the repair, but it changes access, and access belongs in the estimate up front.

Our Replacement Process

1. Free on-site assessment of every opening, identifying which lintels are corroding and where water is entering.
2. Fix the water source — joints, sill, perimeter caulking, gutters — because the new steel inherits whatever the old steel had.
3. Temporary support. The masonry above the opening is shored before anything is removed. This is not optional and it is not visible in the finished job, but it is why the wall above stays where it belongs.
4. Careful removal of the brick courses over the lintel, salvaging sound units for reuse.
5. Remove or treat the steel. Corroded steel is replaced; steel with surface rust and full section is cleaned, treated and primed.
6. Install new lintel with proper bearing at each end and a protective coating.
7. Install through-wall flashing above the lintel with end dams, so water inside the wall is caught and directed back out rather than sitting on the new steel.
8. Rebuild the brickwork with salvaged and matched units, repointed with mortar matched for hardness, color and sand.
9. Weeps and sealant — weeps above the flashing kept open, new backer rod and sealant at the window perimeter.

Steps 3 and 7 are the two that separate a real lintel replacement from a cosmetic one.

Materials We Use

New steel angle lintels, sized and primed for the span; stainless or copper through-wall flashing with end dams; matched replacement brick, with sound original units salvaged and reused wherever possible; Type N and lime-modified mortars matched to pre-1930 masonry — the governing rule being that mortar must be softer than the brick it holds, so joints take the stress instead of the brick faces; and sealants with correct backer rod at perimeters. Related work: lintel repair, brick repair, tuckpointing, limestone and sill repair and caulking and joint sealant.

What Drives Cost

• Number of openings — priced per opening, and the second is meaningfully cheaper than the first once we are set up.
• Span width — a storefront or double window is a different job from a bedroom window.
• Height — ground floor versus second or third storey, and whether staging is needed.
• Extent of brick removal required above the lintel.
• Steel condition — treatable versus full replacement.
• Flashing installation, which means opening the wall properly rather than patching around it.
• Brick matching, since pre-1930 units frequently require salvage.
• Access — gangway width, neighboring-property protection, staging on a tight lot.

We assess in person and itemize by opening, so you can see the number per opening and phase the work if you want to.

For Landlords and Multi-Family Owners

A large share of Cicero's masonry is rental property, and lintel work suits it well.

It is exterior work, staged per opening, and interior access is rarely needed — so tenants stay in place and units stay rented. We coordinate timing with owners and give notice for the specific openings being worked on.

Doing several openings in one mobilization is the single biggest cost saver on a building where they are all the same age and all failing on the same schedule. We itemize each so the arithmetic is visible.

Serving Cicero and the Near West Suburbs

We work throughout 60804 — the residential blocks north and south of Cermak, the two-flat and worker-cottage streets, the mixed-use buildings along the commercial corridors, and the churches and institutional properties in the town. We also serve neighboring Berwyn, Riverside, Brookfield and Forest Park. Cicero owners frequently pair lintel work with tuckpointing or parapet repair.

Emerald Masonry LLC is a family-owned, licensed and insured masonry contractor serving Chicago and the Chicagoland suburbs with 40+ years of experience in tuckpointing, chimney repair, brick repair and replacement, lintel and parapet repair, foundation and limestone/sill repair, caulking, sealing, and commercial, residential and historic masonry restoration. Free on-site estimates — call (708) 288-1696.

The Cost of Waiting

Lintel corrosion does not pause. Every winter the steel expands a little more, the crack opens a little wider, and more water reaches the steel through the crack the steel just made. What starts as staining on one window becomes cracked brick on four — and on a dense Cicero block, loose masonry above a doorway sits directly over a public sidewalk or a shared gangway.

There is also a compounding effect worth naming: the same water rusting your lintels is working on your mortar joints and brick faces at the same time. Lintel staining is frequently the most visible symptom of a wall-wide water problem.

Get a Free Lintel Assessment in Cicero

If you see rust streaks below a window, a crack above an opening, or the same symptom repeating across several openings — and you want the flashing done properly — have it looked at.

Call (708) 288-1696 or request your free estimate.