Why do you recommend hiring an expert?

Aesthetics!  Just about anyone could beat a spalled brick out of a wall, stuff a new brick in there and smear it up with mortar.  But therein lies the problem; often when we see a DIY brick repair or tuckpointing job performed by the unskilled and they were not neat and precise about it.  They usually destroy the aesthetics of the building by damaging adjoining brick or using the wrong mortar dye, causing the repair to stick out like a neon sign.  Almost invariably they smear up the brick face on the unit they replaced and any other brick anywhere near it.  We’ve seen unskilled work done on prominent buildings where it’s so bad that, if it wasn’t so sad, it could almost be comical.