We moved into our new house in october 2008... since then we added a new central heating system, replastered, new electrics etc... it was a relatively negelected property, built in 1890. We opened up a chimey breast that was blocked in the kitchen. Since then we have been getting some white efflorence on the bricks and the mortar is crumbly... we added some window vents in the area..and efflorence seems to have pretty much stopped.. this posed be however to start looking around the property at the brickwork..i went into the loft areas...and pretty much all the mortar in the bricks is like sand in parts, and you can literally wipe the mortar out with your fingers?? i am now panicking that the building will fall down or something.... is this relativley normal for an old property... its rendered on the outside...and the render seems pretty solid? what should i do... i ahvent money to start get things like render taken off, and new things put back on? is there any thing I can do..or should it be o.k.. the surveyor when we brought it did not mention anything about crumbly mortar in places?