The current big project - grinding the mortar out from around every brick so that it can be replaced. The house was apparently painted a red/purple colour and the previous developer used the wrong kind of sand to remove it and so in the process removed a lot of mortar. This not only is bad insulation-wise, but the damage will continue as rain, snow etc gets in and expands. You can see the uneven appearance on the left of the picture. Apparently there are 28,000 bricks in the house and it will take 3 guys 30-35 days to grind it out and then re-mortar. We knew this would have to be done when we bought the house - we just weren't planning on doing it for a couple of years until the insurance company said it must be done before Winter.