r/masonry:

u/BrimstoneOmega

You’re asking people who get paid to do this to do it for free for you. Pay me, because I charge for this work, and I’ll answer.
u/BrimstoneOmega

Pay me and I’ll do this for you. Or better yet, ask the guy you’re already paying for this. Btw, I feel sorry for that guy.
u/BrimstoneOmega

Go away. Ask a painter or something.
u/BrimstoneOmega

Yes.
u/BrimstoneOmega

It will lighten up. Takes 28 days for a full cure. Not saying this is color matched, you’ll need another 25 days to know. I’m not sure how easy this will be to see, but this is what I did today. See next post for the same stone/mortar I did last month.
u/BrimstoneOmega

Call a mason.
u/BrimstoneOmega

Water would be my go to guess, but hard to tell from the video. The paint and brick themselves don’t really so any obvious water damage. Re-point it or have a mason do it. Do you have gutters? This is an odd spot for water damage like this. Is the crawl space damp because of this, or is there water getting in there from somewhere else? The damp from the crawl space could be the culprit, if it’s been this way for 100 years, water will find a way.
u/BrimstoneOmega

To a point, yes it can be repaired. And that repair may be good and last. But that depends on a lot of things, such as why did it fail in the first place? It could be the foundation or lack of a footer that can carry the fireplace. In which case then no, you can’t really repair that without a rebuild. Fireplaces have a skeleton called a chase as well. If the chase it at fault then it may not be possible to fix without taking the facing off, which would essentially be a rebuild. Typically when some one “repairs” masonry it’s not an actual repair, it’s a re-point. Which is, in the case of a failed chase or footer, basically a bandaid on a gunshot wound. You may not see as much blood, you it’s still bleeding internally and the bullet is still lodged in there somewhere. But again, it could have just been because of a thousand different things and be fine. But bowed walls with cracked fireplaces sitting on top of them is a scary prospect.
u/BrimstoneOmega

Uhhhh…. That’s a fireplace. Where’s the basement? Whats the question?