Removing Paint from Brick

[Maria]

What a mess - someone decided to pain the exterior (Victorian red bricks) with ex paint (Sandtex type) and then must have changed their mind - they have scraped half of it off while still wet by the look of it.

It's only smallish area but looks unsightly.

I've tried Nitromors and hot air gun - nothing touches it. The wall faces north and so I have to be careful not to remove the brick facings. Aside from scraping it all off very very slowly with a Stanley knife blade, has anyone found any effective method of removal? Thanks.

[George]

Nitromors and a wire brush or nitromors&power washer.

[Dave Baker]

A couple of years ago I paid a friend who runs a small building company to paint the outside of my rendered house while I was away on holiday. The numbskull he chose to do it Sandtex'd the whole place without putting any dust sheets down so I came back to find the house was nice and white but so was the patio, front path and the porch roof. Don't even get me started on why when he painted the gutters and downpipes he not only used matt black instead of gloss but also painted over all the clean new plastic sections as well as the original metal bits. Oh and didn't bother removing the clothes line which had one end tied round one of the gutter downpipes, he just painted over that too.

Anyway, courtesy of the experiments which had to be conducted after this convincing demonstration of complete brainlessness the answer to your question is a wire brush, or in fact several of them. They don't last long.

[mail]

The answer I found was that you had to remove the brick face in part as the paint had sunk into the pores of the London stocks and red rubbers. I did so with a house with a soft red brick and stock arches and then "tuck" pointed it. I was told not to remove the faces of the bricks as this would lead to damage but that was 25 years ago and I have had not a hint of a problem.

Looking at your problem from first principles, I would experiment with suitable paint softeners - CCl4 and Na OH are, I am told, the basic chemicals. Instinctively I would not go for the latter, inorganic one for fear of salt deposition. I would then consider the possibility of an industrual rotary wire brush.

Whatever you do the clean bit will look different to the old bit for a few years

Chris

[Stuart Noble]

Nitromors is the only stripper that will work on water based (most masonry) paints. The problem is not dissolving the paint but stopping it soaking further into the brick. On soft bricks removing the face is the only practical solution. If they're flat you can sometimes do this with a paint scraper. Avoid rotary abrasion where possible. Swirls aren't pretty

[meow2222]

Theres a water vortex device that can be hired that does an excellent job. Dont recall the brand name though.

Removing the face of soft bricks is not a smart idea.

NT