Jeff Somers is a freelancer who has been writing about writing, books, personal finance, and home maintenance since 2012. When not writing, Jeff spends his free time fixing up his old house. He has ...

Repointing Cost? Does anyone know roughly the cost to re-point a 4 story brownstone? Not looking for cheapest, but a fair cost for quality work. Thanks all.

Repointing brickwork is usually required at least once or twice per century. Wear, weather and structural stresses cause the mortar between bricks to deteriorate over the decades, until you’re left ...

Q. My brick front steps are 50 to 60 years old but are in fairly good shape. I recently found several beige-colored spots about the size of a quarter on the treads. Someone tried wetting them with ...

Last week, I fielded no fewer than five phone calls from homeowner with the same grim news. They found it nearly impossible to get quotes from contractors to do fairly simple repairs. Each caller’s ...