Hi I recently bought a rowhome in philly. The previous owners had a new brick front installed a few years back. My home inspector pointed out that the lintels should have been painted. Now they are rusted. In the last rainstorm, I got a significant amount of water from the front windows and door on the first floor. Floors 2 and 3 were fine. as you can see in the picture, the rusted lintel has cracked the brick. I have started recaulking where the window meets the brick and the lintel. Above the lintel is open but Ive read that it should not be sealed. THere are no weep holes either. The previous owners never disclosed this leak. Not sure if they knew it or not.

 

The third picture is of my neighbors home. Same guy did both fronts. His was bone dry and where his window meets his lintel there is a massive gap. He got zero water

 

Hi Themow...perhaps you should clarify exactly what you are asking about? In reading your posts, I'm not sure what you want advice on.

 

OK I guess I didn't ask a question. What are the remedies for this situation? One mason said to waterproof the brick. Another guy said to call above the lintels. I'm pretty positive they should not be caulked above.

 

Rusty unpainted lintels are pretty normal. You DEFINITELY do not caulk the top edge of a lintel. I'd suspect that water is entering around both sides of the bay window that is above the lower windows.

If the windows had been flashed properly, they probably would not be leaking. But it's probably good that they are... otherwise you would never know about the leak until the sheathing behind the brick was completely rotten.

Get on a ladder and check out the edges of that bay window... especially the bottom corners. It kind of looks like a cluster.

 

That bay window is on my neighbors house his house is dry. Our fronts were done by the same guy at the same time

 

I've always primed/painted steel lintels, mainly because it looks better. A little sanding and oil base primer/paint will fix it up. Unless the lintel has rusted to the point that it is bending or otherwise structurally unsound [and the pics don't support that] I doubt the rust has anything to do with the cracked mortar. While it's best to caulk the lintel to the window, failure to caulk that isn't likely to cause or prevent rain from entering.

I'd also suggest getting on a ladder to carefully inspect everything above the leak [to the left/right also] to see if you can find where the water is getting behind the brick.

 

it may be the problem is that caulk is not the correct mtl - rather you should be using backer rod & a joint sealant,,, we had trouble @ 1 of our rental houses - joint sealant fixed it after i removed all the old caulk

 

Is it my ignorance or loss of memory but aren't the brick or block suppose to sit on the lintels with the angle iron side hidden within the block? I thought the block was suppose to run continuous over the opening?

 

They do. I believe you are looking at the picture wrong if you think they are upside down. What you are seeing (with the screw in it) is probably aluminum window cladding.