So you live in a masonry house. You live in an urban area like I do as well. Lets talk about the pros: it is strong, it is sound resistant, it is resistant to fire (at least the shell), it shrugs off bullets (depending on the state of your neighborhood), it is tornado resistant, and so on. Now the cons: it is naked against an earthquake (if it is unreinforced brick like most 100 yr old homes), it offers no insulating properties, and IT REQUIRES MAINTENENCE! All exterior treatments require maintenence. For example, cement siding needs to be repainted every 10 yrs, vinyl siding is designed to last 15 yrs on average (and don’t be sold otherwise- it is plastic exposed to sunlight and it WILL deteriorate), wood siding requires frequent painting, and brick/stone needs to be tuckpointed.
If brick is left unmaintained, water will infiltrate the gaps, freeze, and begin to heave the wall. Once the heaving begins, you need a bricklayer to repair bulges and shifts that wil occur.
If you maintain the tuckpointing, your brick will last forever sans a major earthquake. In most cases in old St Louis brick, if your mortar joints look rough in texture, it is in need of tuckpointing. Sometimes you can catch it early enough you can just have spots attended to, this is often called “spot pointing”.
But always examine whether you need further work done as this is the skin of your house. If you ignore it, you are dooming your house and your pocketbook.
