Repointing brick stoop

So, the front of my house has a 2-step brick stairway with a landing on top. Back in NYC we'd have called it the stoop- not sure what the rest of the world calls it.

Over the past few years, the mortar has been crumbling out from between the bricks; actually, kind of coming out in chunks rather than crumbling. This is happening mostly on the horizontal part of the steps and landing- the vertical parts show no deterioration at all. The bricks themselves are not loose at all- just the mortar.

This seems to have happened before, in that there are spots in the remaining mortar that have obviously been repaired before I bought the house 10 years ago.

Enough mortar has come out that I can see deep into the gaps, and see that:
1) the bricks are not solid, but the type with 3 holes in the center (if that matters)
2) the mortar has come out down to the next layer of bricks, so in some places the gap is 3-4" deep or so.

Does this sound like a situation where a DIYer like me can stuff new mortar into the gaps?

jharkin said:

How old is the house?

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Built 1981, stoop laid then.

bholler said:

Clean out the gaps very well mix mortar

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Now, that may be an issue... like I said, chunks have come out all over the stoop, and not neatly. In some places chunks have come out in such a way that the gap goes 3" deep, and spreads underneath the joint so that a little opening leads to a much bigger gap underneath. I suspect that the stoop may not have been properly mortared in the first place.

So, does "cleaning out the gaps" mean getting rid of the dirt and twigs? Or bleaching it to kill off any moss? Of just removing the crumbled mortar?

bholler said:

might be bad enough that you may need to relay some bricks

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I considered that, but none of the gaps are quite THAT big, and all the bricks are secure where they are.

Wow... got down in there and discovered something interesting.

Discovered that the bricks aren't really even mortared! As I cleaned out the gaps, I found that the mortar is just a 1/2" or so skin over the gaps between the bricks! If I didn't know better, I'd think the bricks had been laid down like tiles, and then the gaps grouted like tiles instead of mortared like bricks.

Seems like the REAL solution would be a new stoop, but the new owners of the house can worry about that. I think an angle grinder will get the mortar out of the gaps, then I can mortar the gaps back up and hope for the best.