Just some thermal expansion crack or potentially more serious / structural?

[BBBerks]

Advice needed please. Struggle to get tradesperson availability my way on so a bit of advice would be amazing. Equally the local surveyors are booked up and won't come out for less than a grand and even then in 4-5 months' time.

I've spotted a gap in the mortar around one brick on a front wall middle floor (3 storey 70s terrace). Photos below. Could have been there a long time, it's an awkward spot I noticed incidentally for another project.

Does this look like just some normal range thermal expansion, just aged pointing or a sign of something more serious?

No other signs of subsidence in my untrained view. Internal plaster has a few hairline cracks here and there, but doesn't seem to be out of the ordinary. Floors, openings and surfaces are true. Evidence of some aged mortar at ground level. Structural survey when we moved in <2 years ago gave an OK.

Thanks

 

[tony1851]

Not a problem, just an end brick which has been disturbed, maybe by installing replacement window?

 

[BBBerks]

Thanks Tony.

Don't think the windows have been changed in the last 10 years (I've got records from prev owners from only the original purchase and since about 2009), but who knows in the 4 decades before that.

If it were a sign of the dreaded subsidence would more signs be expected?

 

[^woody^]

Known as a "loose brick".

 

[cdbe]

I know the dreaded "S" word scares a lot of people but if you were prepared to pay a surveyor hundreds of pounds to look at that you've had a lucky escape.

 

[BBBerks]

I know the dreaded "S" word scares a lot of people but if you were prepared to pay a surveyor hundreds of pounds to look at that you've had a lucky escape.

1,200 quid was the cheapest quote. "Some time between May and August" time wise too.

As in would be a needless waste of money? If so, that's what my gut said... But I accept my own lack of expertise here.