Gary N Smith, SafeHome Inspections
"Experience you can trust, inspections you can rely on."
If you’re considering buying a home with ivy-covered exterior walls, know that a visual inspection cannot address hidden defects. Ivy can cover important information you may need to consider during the investigative process, most commonly cracks and painted surfaces. If I can’t see it, I can’t report it.
When I inspect and report the surface conditions of brick and concrete, and use the term efflorescence, it has more aesthetic rather than structural consequences.
Rustication is a range of masonry techniques giving visible surfaces a finish that contrasts in texture with the smoothly finished, squared-block masonry surfaces called ashlar.
Quoin has come to be known as the accentuation of a building’s corner with short side header bricks or stone blocks and long side stretcher bricks or stone blocks that may or may not differ from the wall masonry in size, color, or texture.