/diy/ - Do It Yourself

how do I into masonry repair? it seems easy enough, but I'm sure it's not as easy as it looks. ideally I'd like to do it without having to invest in expensive power tools. does anyone know of good books/videos/websites to learn this?

I have an old house, balloon framed, with brick veneer. It might be two layers of brick veneer. at some point they put a cement ("stucco") render over the brick, and it's starting to fall off in some sections. In some cases the bricks look like they completely disintegrated. Others look half broken off. In other areas there are staircase cracks. I could probably spend all summer doing repairs to the walls.

The house, especially in one particular section, is poorly insulated and drafty. I'm wondering if a better long term investment would be to remove the brick veneer entirely, and add insulation on the outside, and then put up some vinyl siding instead.