I wonder if wood construction is more forgiving than concrete once you get to a point where it was neglected for some time. Wood will rot and need replacing, but if your concrete is ignored and the rebar starts crumbling, you can’t just slap fresh concrete over it and call it a day, right?
Rust isn’t load baring, it’s effectively replacing steel with a powder which is a huge issue if you needed the steel in the first place. Cracks from expansion make both this worse and make it obvious, but even without that it would still be a critical failure.
Not for reinforced concrete, the rusted rebar is still rusted after repointing. Which causes ever increasing internal stress and lower strength over time.
The only way to fix it is to remove existing rebar and replace it which isn’t viable on most structures.
