The idea of building with brick is to ensure buildings are built to last, although the fact that every wall is essentially a jigsaw puzzle of interlocking pieces also means that it can be demolished with relative ease when the wrecking ball or dynamite is needed.

While seeing a redundant chimney or building come crashing down may be entertaining, it is somewhat less amusing to witness damage to brickwork on one’s own home. But this is a fact of life, even though brick is a durable material by nature.

A number of different factors can lead to brick being damaged. Collisions with motor vehicles or heavy equipment might chip or crack it. Cracks can also be caused by the ground settling or subsiding, thermal or steel expansion.

Allowing plants to grow up in tiny cracks will widen them and cause structural damage, while sheer wear and tear – especially the process of water ingress known as spalling – can also cause deterioration over time.

Fortunately, provided the damage is dealt with in time, it can be repaired. But if you leave it, the least you will have is ugly, chipped or scratched bricks and the worst will be disintegration and a loss of structural integrity. For this reason, it is always important to get the brick repair specialists on the job as soon as possible.

In the case of water damage, bricks usually need replacing altogether, which is usually a highly-skilled job best left to the professionals. Frost damage can be fixed with sealant and injection mortar can solve small cracks in bricks, although again an expert can judge best if the crack is too big and the brick needs replacing.

Some will try to fix the problem themselves, but that can often lead to the wrong solution being applied or the right one being carried out with insufficient skill – all of which can make a bad situation worse and provides a good reason to get the specialists in.