Cracked or crumbling brick?Call
the Pros.
Brick is built to outlast the mortar around it — the joint is built to wear out first.1 So when the brick itself goes — a face popped off, a lintel lifting the wall, a crack climbing the joints — the water has already won a round. We replace what failed with brick that matches, and fix what let the water in.
Family-owned since 1996·Licensed Chicago mason contractor·5.0 on Angi·Warranty-backed work
The fixSwap the spalled brick for matched units, replace the rusted lintel, reset the sill — while it's a few bricks and not a section of wall.
The evidence
Not our opinion. Three facts, footnoted — from the brick industry's own technical notes, the standard insurance policy form, and published repair bills.
Corrosion is typically initiated when water penetrates masonry and comes in contact with embedded steel.
Brick Industry Association, Technical Notes 1854
Most windows and doors in a pre-war brick wall sit on a steel angle. Rust takes up to ten times the room the steel did54 — so a corroding lintel doesn't just weaken. It swells, lifts the courses above it, and cracks the brick. The brick industry's minimum for plain steel is a coat of primer and paint.55 In our experience, the bare angle iron in a lot of pre-war Chicago walls never got one.
And pre-war is a big share of the neighborhood. More than 39% of Chicago's housing was built in 1939 or earlier, against 21% across the region.3 The bungalow belt alone is 80,000 brick homes from 1910–1940.2 Original steel. Original paint job: none.
The mortar was built to be replaced. The steel was built to be painted. On a lot of pre-war walls, neither happened.
Homeowners policies are written to cover sudden, accidental events — not gradual deterioration. A car through the wall is sudden. A lintel that rusted through over thirty winters, a brick face that froze off one flake at a time — on the standard policy form, that's the other column.5
“Wear and tear, marring, deterioration.” Also “faulty, inadequate or defective… maintenance.” A lintel that rusted for decades and a brick face that spalled for years read like both — and the form doesn't ask which.
Standard policy form (ISO HO-3)5Water through a spalled face or an open crack ends up inside the wall. Mold there is generally not covered; where it is, caps commonly run $1,000–$10,000, varying by company.
Insurance Information Institute7A missing brick at grade is a garage door — a mouse only needs a nickel-sized hole.19 The Texas regulator on what comes next: “If rodents and insects chew on your house, your policy won't pay for the repairs.”
Texas Dept. of Insurance8Homeowners insurance typically does not provide coverage for damages due to lack of maintenance from wear and tear.
State Farm, on its own website6
Sudden gets a claim number. Slow gets an invoice.
Old brick, being essentially a soft, baked clay product, is greatly susceptible to increased deterioration when its hard, outer skin is removed through abrasive techniques.
National Park Service, Preservation Brief 656
NPS wrote that about sandblasting. Freeze–thaw does the same job, slower. Water gets into the brick, freezes, expands 9%17 and takes the fired face with it — then the soft core is open to the next rain, and Chicago sits at or below freezing about 120 days a year.18 “Uncontrolled moisture,” NPS says elsewhere, “is the most prevalent cause of deterioration in older and historic buildings.”9 One spall becomes a course. A course becomes a section.
The price follows the count. Angi puts spalling-brick repair at $900–$1,200 for a few sections — and as high as $20,000 when large sections of a wall have to be rebuilt.51 Same source, same problem, same wall. The only variable is how many winters it got.
The first spall is a morning's work. The fortieth is a scaffold.
Warning signs
The National Park Service's own checklist for exposed brick: cracking, spalling, bowing, sweeping, leaning and mortar deterioration.52 Here's what three of those look like from the sidewalk — plus three the list leaves out: the lintel, the sill, and the patch that looks like a repair.
Spalling. Water got into the brick, froze, expanded 9%17 and took the face off. What's left is the soft core, and it soaks faster than the face did. Spalling brick repair isn't repointing or patching — the brick is cut out and replaced with a unit that matches.38
Act nowThe stair-step. Masonry guidance says foundation settlement typically shows up exactly this way — a crack along the mortar joints in the settled area.53 Not every one is settlement, but every one is movement. The first question in any brick crack repair is whether it's still moving.
Get it assessedA horizontal crack at the window head, the courses above it humped, rust streaks on the steel. Rust takes up to ten times the volume of the steel it grew from54 — it's jacking the wall up. Caulk over the crack is a bandage on a car jack — the fix is lintel replacement.
Act nowA sill that's cracked, or pitched back toward the house, funnels every rain into the wall under the window. The brick industry lists sills among the parts under “more severe exposures” that may need repair sooner than the rest of the wall.38 Look below the window for what it's been feeding.
Reset soonStand at the corner and look along the face. A section pushed out of plane — bowing or sweeping, in NPS's words52 — has let go of the wall behind it. That's not a brick repair anymore. It's a rebuild, and a smaller one the sooner it starts.
Act nowSomebody smeared hard cement over a popped face or a chewed-out joint. NPS: a mortar stronger than the brick doesn't give, so the stress is relieved through the brick around it — “cracking and spalling, that cannot be repaired easily.”1 It isn't a repair. It's the next spall, scheduled.
Cut it outSmall fixes stay small. See how this one grows ›
The diagnosis
Five failures, one elevation, one cause. Water is “the most prevalent cause of deterioration” in older buildings9 — and every stop below is water finding steel, stone or soft clay. Every number is footnoted.
Chart No. 1996-BRK Patient Your west wall Presenting Spalled brick Attending The Pros
Most windows and doors in a pre-war brick wall sit on a steel angle. Corrosion “is typically initiated when water penetrates masonry and comes in contact with embedded steel,”54 and rust takes up to ten times the room the steel did.54 The angle swells, the courses above lift, and the joint over the window opens into a crack. Masons call it rust jacking.
The brick industry says plain steel lintels should at minimum be primed and painted.55 In our experience, the bare angle iron in a lot of pre-war Chicago walls never got that — our observation from the ladder, not a citation. Caught early, it's a $500–$700 swap over a window.50 Caught late, the window head gets rebuilt with it.
The fix — new galvanized lintel, flashed, and the courses above relaid — not a bead of caulk over the crackA crack that climbs the wall diagonally, joint by joint, like a staircase. It follows the joints because the mortar is meant to be the softer material1 — the crack takes the easy road. Masonry guidance says foundation settlement typically shows up exactly this way: a stair-step crack along the mortar joints in the settled area.53 Not always settlement — moisture and thermal movement can do it too — but always the wall telling you it moved.
The question is whether it's still moving. A hairline that's been the same for twenty years is a repoint. A crack that's opened since last spring gets a look at the footing first — foundation repair runs $2,225–$8,135 by national estimate11, and that's the bill nobody wants to discover after the wall's been pointed.
The fix — find the cause, then close the crack — repoint a stable one; rebuild and tie a moving one once the footing's sortedThe face popped off. Water soaked into the brick, froze and expanded 9%17 — and with Chicago at or below freezing about 120 days a year18, it gets plenty of tries. What's left is the soft core. NPS's warning about sandblasted brick applies here too: old brick is “essentially a soft, baked clay product” that deteriorates much faster once its hard outer skin is gone.56 Freeze–thaw just takes the skin off slower.
So a spalled brick doesn't get patched. A smear of cement over a soft core is paint on a wound — and a mortar harder than the brick sends the stress into the brick around it, causing “cracking and spalling, that cannot be repaired easily.”1 The unit gets cut out and replaced — brick replacement, not a patch. The brick industry says the replacement has to match the original in color, texture, size and physical properties38, which is why we hunt matched or salvaged units instead of grabbing the nearest red on the pallet.
The fix — cut it out and replace it with a matched unit, bedded in mortar softer than the brick1The sill's one job is to throw water off the wall. A cracked, tipped or back-pitched stone sill does the opposite — it funnels every rain into the joint under the window, and from there down inside the wall. The brick industry files sills with parapets and chimneys under “more severe exposures” that may need repair at shorter intervals than the rest of the wall.38
Look under the window for the tell: sandy joints, a stain, a stair-step crack starting at the sill corner. Replacing a window sill runs about $250–$800 by national estimate57 — a general sill guide, so a stone sill lands toward the top — and stone is $20–$80 a foot in material.57 Put off the window sill replacement and the brick under it, once it's soaked and spalled, costs more than the sill did.
The fix — reset or replace the sill — pitched to shed, drip edge clear, the joint under it repointed and sealedSight down the wall from the corner. A section pushed out of plane — bowing, a vertical bulge, or sweeping, a horizontal one — is on the NPS list of things to inspect masonry for52, and it's the one that stops being a repair. The outer face has let go of whatever was holding it to the wall behind: ties rusted, mortar gone, water in the gap.
That's rebuild territory: take the section down to sound brick, tie it back, lay it up again. National estimates put a bowing wall at $2,000–$6,500 per 100 square feet, depending on cause and method.50 It's also the kind of structural finding an appraiser grades — and C6, the grade for deficiencies affecting safety, soundness or structural integrity, is the one Fannie Mae won't buy a loan on until it's repaired.26
The fix — take it down and relay it, tied to the wall behind — before it picks the date for youThe cascade
Every job below starts the same way: water past a brick that was supposed to shed it. The only variable is how many winters it got.
The honest version: Brick replacement, unit by unit, isn't cheap — it's handwork, and finding the match takes longer than laying it. The escalation is in the count. Six spalled bricks are a morning. A hundred square feet is a scaffold. A bowed section is a rebuild, and whatever the water reached behind it — framing, the inside of the wall — is five figures. None of it reads like the sudden, accidental loss the standard policy form is written for.5
How it works
A free on-site assessment. We walk every elevation, sight down the walls, probe the lintels and sills, and tell you which cracks are moving and which are history. Then we quote it straight — a few bricks first, a rebuild only if the wall has earned it.
Failed brick comes out whole — cut at the joints, not chiseled through its neighbors. Rusted lintels are shored, pulled and replaced in galvanized steel, flashed so water runs out. Cracked sills come out in one piece where they can. Tarps down, dust controlled.
Straight answers
National guides put general brick repair at about $500–$2,500, or $10–$30 per square foot.50 By job: a small section of spalled brick starts at $250–$450, and up to 100 square feet runs $1,000–$3,50050; a lintel over a window is $500–$700, over a garage $1,000–$5,00050; a window sill is $250–$800, with a stone sill on a two-flat landing toward the top of that57; a bowing wall is $2,000–$6,500 per 100 square feet, depending on the cause.50
Those are aggregator estimates, not quotes — and we don't price per brick, because the guides that do can't agree with each other. They disagree on the floor, too — HomeGuide's small-section minimum is $250–$45050, Angi's few-sections figure is $900–$1,20051 — which is why you get a real number, not a range. Send a photo and we'll give you one for your wall, free.
Spring through fall, while mortar can cure above freezing — we watch the forecast, not the calendar. O'Hare sees about 120 days a year at or below 32°F18, and a spalled brick or an open crack spends every one of them taking on water that expands 9% when it freezes.17 A spall you carry into December is a bigger spall in March.
Found it in winter? Send the photo anyway. We can tarp or temporarily seal it to stop the water, and put you first on the list for the thaw.
Can it wait? Sometimes. A hairline that hasn't changed in years, a single spall on a sheltered wall — we'll tell you if it's a next-year job. A lintel lifting the brick, a sill dumping water into the wall, a bulge you can see from the corner, or an open spall heading into winter: no.
Can you do it yourself? The trowel isn't the hard part. Matching the brick is — the brick industry says a replacement has to match the original in color, texture, size and physical properties38 — and so is the mortar. Use one harder than the brick and NPS says the stress goes into the brick around it, causing “cracking and spalling, that cannot be repaired easily.”1
Two more don'ts. Don't sandblast or pressure-wash it “clean” first — old brick is “essentially a soft, baked clay product” and deteriorates far faster once its hard skin is gone.56 And don't reach for a bucket of clear sealer: the brick industry says water repellents don't belong on walls with cracks, open joints or other openings — fix those first.77
Not if the brick matches, and that's the whole job. The brick industry's maintenance guidance says replacement brick must match the existing in color, texture and size as well as physical properties38 — so for a pre-war wall we hunt matched new or salvaged units instead of grabbing the nearest red on the pallet, and we match the mortar too.1 A good brick replacement stops announcing itself within a season. A bad one is a checkerboard forever.
It matters past the curb. Peer-reviewed research puts up to 7% of sale price on curb appeal, with the premium larger in a weak market27 — and every appraised home gets a C1–C6 condition rating whose middle rungs cite “deferred maintenance.”25 A visibly patched wall is deferred maintenance with a spotlight on it.
It's the one to get looked at. Masonry guidance says foundation settlement typically shows up as a stair-step crack along the mortar joints in the settled area53 — the crack follows the joints because that's the path of least resistance. Thermal and moisture movement can stair-step too, and an old, stable crack from a house that settled decades ago is a repoint, not a crisis.
What we look for: is it wider at one end, has it opened since last year, is there a matching crack inside or on the foundation. If the footing's moving, that's a foundation job first — $2,225–$8,135 by national estimate11 — and pointing the crack before that is money you'd spend twice. Send a photo with a coin next to it for scale.
Because the crack isn't the problem; it's the readout. The steel angle over the window is rusting, and rust takes up to ten times the volume of the steel it forms from54 — it's physically jacking the courses above it upward. Point the crack and the jack keeps working. It opens again next winter, with the new mortar in it.
The brick industry says plain steel lintels should at minimum be primed and painted to slow corrosion55; the angle iron in a lot of pre-war walls never was, in our experience. The fix is lintel replacement — a new galvanized lintel, flashed so water runs out instead of in, with the courses above relaid. National estimates put a window lintel at $500–$700.50 The window head rebuilt after it's split the wall is not that.
Ask your agent — we're masonry contractors, not adjusters. But read the form first. The standard homeowners policy form excludes “wear and tear, marring, deterioration” and “faulty, inadequate or defective… maintenance”5, and State Farm's own site says homeowners insurance “typically does not provide coverage for damages due to lack of maintenance from wear and tear.”6 A lintel that rusted for decades and a brick face that froze off one winter at a time read like that.
Sudden and accidental is a different conversation — a car through the wall, a tree through the parapet — and one to have with your carrier. For everything gradual, read those two exclusions again before you count on a check. Which is the whole argument for paying the bill while it's a few bricks.
Free estimate
Send a photo of the bad brick close up and one of the whole wall from the sidewalk — if it's over a window, get the lintel in the shot. We'll tell you what we see, in plain English, and quote it straight: a few bricks first. We do brick repair across Elmhurst, Oak Park, Villa Park, Lombard, Hinsdale and the rest of Chicagoland.