Cracks in mortar rows on exterior brick column--ideas? (house, inspector)

[loves2read]

We are having our house repainted and the guys are caulking now. One of them point to two places on brick column on our front porch where there are cracks along the mortar line coming from the roof line down--
maybe 4-6 inches long...
He offered to caulk w/clear silicone to fill in the space and keep water out since it faces the exterior and would get rain intrusion...
this column is on the front entrance to porch from sidewalk...the porch is about 4-5 ft wide/concrete and about 12-15 ft deep...with brick wall on the interior side and arched opening to sidewalk and opening past the pillar to the yard...

There is a flower bed next to the porch and then the yard...
We run the sprinklers twice a week in 3 cycles about 5 min each because our yard has so much clay--
we can't run for long time in one blast--water just runs off and doesn't soak in...

this house has an engineered foundation--not a floating slab--
the sellers left the name and drawings for the engineering firm who did the work when house was built
but the builder who contracted for the foundation committed suicide during the course of the build and someone else was responsible for finishing most of the interior trim stuff...

how serious is this likely to be--do we need a foundation engineer?
Contact the original foundation engineers/builder?

we have noticed no other cracks in the interior although the ceilings on first floor are 10 to 20 ft high
which might make some cracks difficult to discern

there are some surface cracks on the patio in back that we just took as that--surface cracks and normal when we bought...

[RoadWarrior12]

Really short cracks like that are likely not an issue at all, as long as you have them caulked (or if you want to go whole hog - get them re-pointed). More likely a thin mortar mix, normal settling of underlying mortar, etc. You definitely want to stop water intrusion, as it'll get in there and freeze in the winter, continuing the crack.

[loves2read]

OK--thanks for the info
there are other spots in the brickwork where mortar was not applied so that it was evenly distributed--
meaning there are small holes/gaps in mortar between brick layers...
it was probably not the best brick work but we didn't really notice that until later and the inspector certainly didn't mention anything like that in the report...

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by loves2read

OK--thanks for the info
there are other spots in the brickwork where mortar was not applied so that it was evenly distributed--
meaning there are small holes/gaps in mortar between brick layers...
it was probably not the best brick work but we didn't really notice that until later and the inspector certainly didn't mention anything like that in the report...

I agree with RW12, caulk and forget. Also caulk all of gaps and holes in any mortar joints all around the house.

[WorldKlas]

Get mortar in a tube, like caulk, they sell one at Home Depot that is great....has kind of a slanted end of the tube and costs about $5 ....it's better than clear caulk and even better than the stuff a few bucks more. I would not worry about your foundation. Normal.