Replacing brick veneer?

Hi all,

We're considering buying an early 90s build, 2-story, brick veneer house in Sydney. It's built on a concrete slab.

The bricks are pretty gross. The window and door frames are also gross and need replacing. Before we knew it was veneer, we were planning on just cladding or painting the exterior. Now we know it is veneer, I'm wondering two things:
1. How hard/expensive is it to remove the veneer and replace it with something else? Is that a better option than just cladding/painting?
2. Is there a good insulation/sound proofing solution for this situation?

Grateful for directions. If/once we buy, we'll engage builders, but would like to get more of an idea of what we're getting into without wasting their time pre-purchase.

Cheers,
Chris

PS. Just came across this forum via Google - it looks awesome. Apologies if this question has been answered before - I'm still figuring out the site.

Best option will be to render your bricks from the outside.

Brick veneer IS a cladding, bricks are not structural.
Insulation can be checked and if necessary replaced from the inside as it is inside the frame.

Make holes in several random gyprock sheets to check the state of the insulation.

As for sound proofing, brick veneer structure is generally performing okay, so better focus on getting good windows (e.g. double glazed) as mainly they will be the weakest link in the acoustics.

Great advice, thanks Alex