28 March 2026
Every window and door in a brick wall has a problem to solve: something has to hold up the bricks above the opening. That something is a lintel, and while you rarely see it, it is doing a lot of work.
A lintel is a beam that spans the top of an opening and carries the weight of the brickwork (and sometimes the roof load) above it down to the brick on either side. Without it the bricks over a window would have nothing to sit on and would sag or collapse into the gap. Common types include:
A lintel has to be sized for the span and the load above it, and it has to bear far enough onto the brickwork at each end. Get that wrong and the wall tells you over time. The bearing at each end is just as important as the beam itself, because that is where the load is handed back to the wall.
Most lintel trouble comes from steel rusting. Older steel lintels can corrode, and as the steel rusts it swells and lifts the brickwork above it. This is common in older Melbourne homes where the original steel was not well protected. Watch for:
A failing lintel does not get better on its own. The rust keeps growing, the brickwork keeps lifting, and what starts as a hairline crack can turn into loose, unsafe brickwork above an opening people walk under. Caught early it is often a manageable repair. Left for years it can mean taking down and rebuilding a section of wall.
Replacing a lintel means carefully supporting the brickwork above, removing the old beam, fitting a properly sized and protected new one with the right bearing, and making good the brick around it. It is skilled work and not a job to improvise, because the wall above has to stay supported the whole time.
If you have cracking or rust staining above a window or door, send us a photo of the opening and your suburb and we will tell you whether the lintel is the likely cause and what it would take to put right.