Thorocoat or stucco? Or another option?

Have received a bit of conflicting advice here and am curious if anyone has relevant experience to share. Previous owners painted our rear and side exterior brick walls with aluminium roof paint ?!#!?? (see photos). The masonry is now in poor condition – mortar is deteriorating and some bricks are crumbling, etc. At this point, don’t think we can remove the paint from these bricks, so just repointing/replacing damaged bricks isn’t an option. We have received quotes for both repointing and stucco (~$20-23K) or repointing and thorocoat (~$12-14K). Have heard some objections to thorocoat – that brick needs to breathe/shouldn’t be coated, but in our case, the brick is already covered in a layer of paint. So the question is: is there anything about stucco that makes it a better choice than thorocoat for this job? Open to other suggestions – just looking for something that will hold up, keep us dry and mitigate my fear that the back of the house will fall off in the middle of the night. Many thanks!

fluxcapacitor

in Facade and Brownstone Repair 9 years and 11 months ago

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NeoGrec | 9 years and 11 months ago

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We used Cecil King in Bed Stuy to remove old paint/thorocoat and repoint the back of our house. He was able to clean up the bricks far better than I had anticipated. After repointing, we did NOT repaint. This was 10 years ago. Still looking good.

Guest User | 9 years and 11 months ago

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There was an extensive discussion about this on the Forum recently so go to this link: http://brownstoner.staging.wpengine.com/forums/topic/painting-exterior-of-house-brick-do-i-need-to-point/ There are many additional similar discussions, so search the forum. Most Brownstoners recommend removing paint and repointing. Bricks — at least old ones — are meant to breathe, not be covered by paint, stucco, etc. That’s what we did and we love it. Let that gorgeous clay-red brick shine, as it was intended!

Arkady | 9 years and 11 months ago

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Muriatic acid will eat the mortar, not the paint.

no-permits | 9 years and 11 months ago

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i don’t know about using rock miracle on an exterior brick wall. something like muriatic acid should do the trick. i definitely wouldn’t stucco or thoro the wall. the wall will look great and do its job with a good pointing.

Arkady | 9 years and 11 months ago

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Years ago I had my back wall stripped of paint – the method used was a slow trickle of water. The company that did it is no longer around but there’re probably still services existing. It really isn’t a good idea to cover the bricks w/ anything. Even if the wall’s unsightly after it’s stripped, you’re better off getting it re-pointed.

GreenThinker | 9 years and 11 months ago

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You can definitely strip the paint. I’d use rock miracle, others use peel away 7\. Very time consuming work though. But if it’s only 1-3 layers of paint it should go fairly quickly.