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Cat_Toucher t1_jacfzi8 wrote

Exposed brick is cute in theory, but in practice, most of the internal brick walls are built with softer, shittier bricks than the facade of the house. They are difficult to seal adequately, so often brick dust starts crumbling off of them and getting everywhere. Cleaning them is next to impossible. Plus removing the plaster wall to expose the brick is also removing everything that insulates you from cold, from neighbor's sounds, from neighbor's smells, etc. If you look at threads in this sub in the past, there are a lot of people complaining about their neighbors smoking, or making stinky food, or just the normal everyday sounds that we all make, and their exposed brick wall just letting it all through. There's nothing you can do to stop your neighbor from doing any of that, and it goes both ways, so even if the house you're looking at doesn't have exposed brick, if one of the neighbors has exposed the shared wall in their house, you'll get all the drawbacks.

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S-Kunst t1_jadi2lp wrote

Yes. EVen though I am not a fan on exposing he brick, I noticed that from the floor up, the plaster has been disintegrating in my basement. Where ever the plaster has turned to sand, so has the mortar. When I chipped off the remaining plaster, to re-point, I found the mortar good and hard. When I repointed the lower section, the upper old mortar stays good.

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trymypi t1_jacuzrs wrote

A lot (most? all?) of the more recently renovated houses have sealed brick, and I haven't heard of too much trouble in that case (although unsealed obviously is not an option).

Also, how much insulation does plaster actually provide? And I haven't heard anyone, in any of the historic homes, complain about sounds or smells. Maybe the newish ones.

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