Removing limewash, sanding brick faces, acid, blast or other means?

[mikeey84]

Whilst it isn't what you wanted, that looks really nice

 

[WimWam]

Thanks! I’ll also add it was a complete ballache, and pretty overwhelming at times. The chimney stacks really drained me - and the tops had to be rebuilt. Not a task i’d want to repeat tbh.

 

[Zaceverett]

That's a really good outcome.

I'm losing the will to live with mine. I'm going through all the possibilities. First stripping with Solvistrip and Peelaway7. Then I'm left with limewash. I've been using a needle gun but it's taking some of the brick away. I've just ordered some Acid from PaintStrippers online. Going to try that next.

I've had a chap with a ThermaTec try to remove it but it seems to take away more of the soft brick that the limewash. Not sure if something has been added to it.

I would like to know WimWam did you strip it back to brick completely or did you get it to a good enough standard to apply the Keim? I'm also looking at using a silicate, probably SecilTek though as cant afford Keim.

 

[WimWam]

Solvistrip and Peelaway won’t touch limewash at all, but they may get you back to bare limewash. I tried both at some point. In my case the top layer was a crappy plastic masonry paint - complete unsuitable for a solid brick wall, stopping it breathing properly. However, plastic masonry paint does not adhere well (it least in this case, but i also read that generally it is true) so a lot of it was peeling and flaking off. To remove the majority of the rest i used a pressure washer. In a few places it had adhered quite well, in those areas i used some generic cheap paint stripper gloop (just benzyl alchohol gel) which works but creates a sticky mess. It was not a pleasant task, and often resorted to holding hose jet in one hand and a brush attachment in a cordless drill in the other to basicalkt brush it off. This was all done on the basis that no mineral paint was gonna stick to plastic paint. i had tried some ither ootions like a paint removal disc in an angle grinder but it would dig into the brick easier than the limewash and so left some marks. I also tried a hot air gun and a scraper, that also ‘sort of’ works. ‘Aciclean’ is just hydrochloric as far as i could tell, like any ‘brick cleaner’, just the strength varies, anything up to 20%. They worked in some areas more than others.

If you have a lot of masonry paint to remove consider getting a contractor with a thermal/steam solution like a Jos? to blow off that layer then you’ll be good to go with the mineral paint. Keim is brutally expensive - gotta be at least £500 on that wall. The reason i went with it was that they had good test data to back it up (moisture absorption and evaporation), i was less impressed with the info from Mike Wye regarding Ceciltek Silicate paint - a blurry crop of a tabulated data with no reference to the product name.... i’m sure it’s a decent product but was fed up with researching by that point....

i got it back to looking like this:

Closer finished result: