Buying a Brick House in Chicagoland? What to Check Before You Make an Offer

You've found a brick house you like. The inspection report comes back with a paragraph about "stepped cracking at the northwest elevation," a note on the chimney, and a recommendation to have a masonry contractor evaluate.

That report is doing its job. What it can't tell you is which conditions are a weekend's repointing and which are a serious rebuild — and on a Chicagoland brick building, that difference can be the difference between a house you love and a project you resent.

Paul Lally's Masonry has been assessing Chicago-area masonry since 1988. Here's what to actually look at, in the order that matters, and which findings genuinely change the math.

Why masonry deserves its own look here

Three regional realities:

The stock is old. The bungalow belt, greystones, two-flats, and storefronts were built roughly 1890–1930, of soft locally-fired common brick and lime mortar. That's a hundred-plus winters on the joints.

The climate is punishing. Repeated hard freeze-thaw cycling, wind-driven rain off the lake, and heavy de-icing salt at grade.

The failures hide. The parapet is above the roofline. The lintel is behind the brick. The joints look fine from twenty feet. Masonry problems are routinely a long way from where they show.

The walkthrough: what to check, in priority order

1. Is any wall moving? (the expensive one)

Before anything else, sight down each elevation from the corner. You're looking for bowing, bulging, or leaning — a wall out of plane along its length.

Then check any crack for displacement: run a finger across it. Flush on both sides is one thing. One side sitting proud of the other means the wall has moved, and that's structural until proven otherwise.

Inside, look for corroborating evidence: sticking doors and windows, sloping or springy floors, fresh plaster cracks at door and window corners, gaps at the top of baseboards.

This is the finding that most changes a purchase decision, because it needs a licensed structural engineer before any masonry work and the remedy can run to drainage, underpinning, or rebuilding. See mason or structural engineer.

2. The parapet — on any flat-roofed building

If it's a two-flat, three-flat, courtyard building, or storefront, there's a parapet standing above the roof deck with coping caps on top.

It's exposed on both faces plus the top, so it deteriorates decades before the rest of the building. When the coping joints open, water runs down inside the wall — which is why top-floor ceiling stains so often survive a roof replacement.

It cannot be assessed from the sidewalk, and it is routinely missed entirely during a purchase inspection. On a flat-roofed building this is the single most valuable thing to get eyes on. See parapet wall repair.

3. The chimney

The most exposed masonry on any house — weather from four sides above the roofline. Look for a cracked crown, a missing cap, spalled brick at the shoulders, soft joints, deteriorated flashing, and any lean.

It's also visible in every listing photo, so a crumbling one tells you something about how the whole property was maintained.

4. Above every window, door, and garage opening

Look for a horizontal crack running the width of the opening, often with orange-brown rust staining bleeding down the brick, sometimes with step cracks radiating from the top corners and a visibly lifted course.

That's rust jacking — the steel lintel is corroding and expanding. Very common on Chicagoland homes from the 1950s onward, where wide picture windows and two-car garages sit on long spans of ungalvanized steel.

Check every opening on an elevation, not just the obvious one. Lintels were installed the same year in the same exposure and fail on the same schedule. See failing lintels.

5. The mortar joints — do the key test

Run a house key along a mortar joint. Skids across a hard surface? Sound. Digs in, mortar crumbling out as sand? That joint has failed.

Do it in several places: north and west elevations that take the weather, the bottom three courses, around the chimney, and on the gangway side nobody looks at. Failure is rarely uniform.

This takes thirty seconds and tells you more than any single line in a report. See what is tuckpointing.

6. The brick faces

Spalling — faces flaking, powdering, or popped off leaving a rough sandy surface. Water got in, froze, and pushed the fired face off. Permanent, and it accelerates.

Note where it concentrates: north and west walls, the bottom courses, under sills, at chimney shoulders. Concentrated spalling at the joint edges specifically is a tell that someone repointed with mortar harder than the brick — a repair that's actively damaging the wall.

7. Grade level

Crumbling base course, failed parging, deterioration beside the driveway and walk where de-icing salt does its work. Check whether grade slopes toward the house, where downspouts discharge, and whether soil or mulch is piled against the brick.

Also look at the steps and stoop — they take salt, standing meltwater, and foot traffic, and a rocking tread is both a repair and a liability. See masonry steps, stoops, and porches.

8. Stone, if there is any

On a greystone or older brick home: sills, lintels, water table, steps, quoins, and carved trim in Indiana limestone. Look for delamination — stone coming away in flat sheets — eroded surfaces where crisp tooling used to be, and lost drip edges under the sills.

Original stone can only ever be approximated once lost, so this is worth understanding before you own it.

9. Evidence of bad previous repairs

These matter because you inherit them, and some aren't reversible:

• Skim pointing — mortar riding onto brick faces, joints that look painted on, a profile that doesn't match untouched sections
• Hard mortar on soft brick — crisp grey modern joints beside brick that's spalling at the joint edges. Permanent damage.
• Caulk in the brick joints instead of mortar
• Painted brick — traps moisture, spalls the face, and is effectively permanent. See should you paint your brick.
• Blast-cleaned masonry — uniformly rough, matte, sandy surfaces; the protective fired face is gone
• Sealed weep holes on a veneer wall — the drain has been caulked shut

10. Which wall type is it?

Solid masonry or brick veneer? Look for header courses — rows where bricks turn sideways — which indicate solid multi-wythe construction. Look for weep holes along the base course, which indicate veneer.

It changes every repair estimate you'll get, and it changes what a bulging wall means: on veneer, bowing is failed ties, not failed mortar. See brick veneer vs. solid masonry.

Sorting findings by what they actually cost you

Finding	Typically	Priority
Soft mortar joints on some elevations	Ordinary repointing	Budget for it
Spalled brick, scattered units	Replacement + repointing	Budget for it
Cracked brick above an opening, rust staining	Lintel replacement	Get it scoped
Cracked chimney crown, missing cap	Chimney repair	Get it scoped
Deteriorated parapet and coping	Rebuild + re-cope	Scope before offering
Delaminating limestone, carved stone	Stone restoration	Scope before offering
Bowing, leaning, or displaced wall	Structural — engineer first	Walk or scope hard
Painted brick with peeling and spalling	Permanent obligation	Understand what you're taking on
Hard mortar over soft brick	Irreversible brick damage	Factor into value

The pattern: joints and brick are ordinary maintenance on a century-old house. Parapets, stone, and movement are the ones worth getting a real number on before you commit.

When to bring in a mason before you buy

Worth doing when:

• The building is pre-1930s and you're not experienced with old masonry
• It's a flat-roofed two-flat or three-flat — get the parapet looked at
• It's a greystone or has significant stone
• The inspection flagged anything structural-sounding
• You see displacement, bowing, or multiple cracked openings
• You're buying as an investment and need a real capital plan
• The report says "recommend evaluation by a qualified masonry contractor" and you'd like to know what that means in scope

What you get is different from an inspection: a cause, a scope, and a written number — which is what you actually negotiate with, or budget against.

One honest limit: a contractor's estimate isn't an independent engineering report. If a wall is moving, what you need is a licensed structural engineer, and that's a paid, independent service.

Using it in the transaction

Sellers discount against defined numbers far more readily than against open-ended worries. An inspection line saying "stepped cracking; recommend evaluation" is a blank cheque in a buyer's mind and a threat in a seller's — neither of you knows what it means.

A written masonry scope converts that into a specific figure. From there you can ask for a credit, ask for the work, adjust the offer, or decide it's a fine house that needs ordinary maintenance and proceed without drama.

It also occasionally works the other way: we've walked buildings where the alarming-sounding crack was dormant settlement from the 1960s and the real issue was a parapet nobody had mentioned.

What good news looks like

Not every old brick building is a problem. Encouraging signs:

• Mortar that resists the key across most elevations
• Correct-looking repointing — recessed joints, matched color, profile consistent with untouched sections
• A capped chimney with a sound crown
• Coping in place and tight on a flat roof
• Clear gutters, downspouts discharging well away, grade sloping off
• No displacement in any crack
• Unpainted, unblasted brick with its fired face intact
• Open weep holes on a veneer wall

A century-old Chicago brick house that's been maintained correctly is among the best-built housing stock in the country. These buildings aren't fragile — they just want the right maintenance rather than more of it.

Related services

Whatever a purchase walk turns up, the work falls under tuckpointing and repointing, brick repair, brick replacement, chimney repair and rebuilds, lintel repair and replacement, parapet wall repair, limestone and sill repair, foundation masonry repair, caulking and joint sealant, masonry waterproofing, or residential and historic masonry restoration.

Selling rather than buying? See masonry repair before selling your Chicago home, and what actually happens during a free masonry estimate.

The bottom line

Check for movement first, the parapet second, the chimney third, and every window head fourth. Then do the key test on the mortar. Joints and brick are ordinary maintenance on an old Chicago house. Movement, parapets, and stone are the findings worth a real number before you commit.

And don't let a stepped crack scare you off a good building. Most of them stopped moving before you were born.

Paul Lally's Masonry Inc. is a family-owned, insured masonry contractor serving Chicago and the Chicagoland suburbs since 1988 — tuckpointing, brick repair and replacement, chimney repair and rebuilds, lintel replacement, masonry restoration, and waterproofing for residential and commercial properties. Built on Craftsmanship. Backed by Experience.

We'll walk a building you're considering, tell you what's causing what we see, and put a scope in writing — including when the honest answer is "this is a sound house that needs repointing." Our family name is on every job.

Free on-site estimates — call (708) 448-8866 or request an estimate online.