How to strip rear facade brickwork of paint/thorocoat

Hi everyone, I have a 2 story rear brick facade that is covered with thorocoat that has some cracking and peeling on the garden level. The mortar joints that are showing look like they need to be repointed. I was thinking maybe I should strip the rest of the brick on the garden level to see what the condition is but wanted to check here first before I attempt anything. Depending on the condition of the brick, I would attempt to DIY repoint using the masonry degree I obtained from youtube.

Has anyone attempted work like this on their own and have any advice?

Fort_Green_p_nut

in General Discussion 5 years and 2 months ago

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Fort_Green_p_nut | 5 years and 2 months ago

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I thought it’s bad to paint exterior brick because the bricks need to breathe. Why wouldn’t it hurt in this case? Thanks!

restorationcontractor | 5 years and 2 months ago

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Email me your contact info and I will get back to you to discuss further.
Larconst@aol.com

RobertGMarvin

in General Discussion 5 years and 2 months ago

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“You could just scrape the loose areas and patch, repaint it’s not going to hurt anything and will look better for a while”.

That’s what I’ve done.. I’ve only needed three paint jobs in 45 years.

Fort_Green_p_nut | 5 years and 2 months ago

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@restoration: would you or someone you recommend like to come check it out and make a proposal?

restorationcontractor | 5 years and 2 months ago

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It looks like you have paint on top of an older cement wash coat.
Hard Portland cement washes were popular in the past, unfortunately they don’t work, they just trap moisture and cause more damage to the brick.
Your cement wash seems to be well bonded to the brick as in the close up you can see it has actually pulled the face of the brick off with it where it has flaked off.

The wall looks to be very wet, I would first look to address the water infiltration. Most likely this happened from freezing damage in the winter.

There is no easy way to deal with this, Bob is right, it’s going to be a mess, but that can be dealt with setting up proper containment. The procedure I would use would be to powerwash/steam clean the wall first to try and remove any loose areas (we use lower pressure Karcher powerwasher/steam cleaning units, they work much better for this type of thing than regular high pressure cold water units)
After that you would have to carefully grind and hand chisel out the joints to prep for pointing which would loosen up more of the surface coat. After tha t you would have to abrade the face of the brick to remove the remaining cement wash coat (there will be quite a bit left on), then another powerwashing/steam clean after all that.
Any heavily damaged bricks would need to be cut out and replaced with matching used brick. The faces of the brick that are damaged but not enough to warrant replacement can be coated with a custom color matched red stucco prior to repointing (so they look like brick after the repointing).
After all this prep work you can repoint using a soft mortar. I would add retrofit weep drains that are made specifically for historic masonry buildings, then follow up with a Silox/Silane sealer.
Sorry but definitely not a DIY project. You could just scrape the loose areas and patch, repaint it’s not going to hurt anything and will look better for a while.

Fort_Green_p_nut | 5 years and 2 months ago

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@restorationcontractor: here are some pictures. It’s likely that there is a mix of thorocoat on brick and thorocoat on top of paint on the bricks.

@bob marvin: yes part of my thinking would be how to contain all the mess. The part of the wall in question is below my deck off the parlor floor, so hopefully hanging plastic sheeting from the deck will help.

[IMG_20200725_115428](//muut.com/u/brownstoner/s3/:brownstoner:Nth9:img_20200725_115428.jpg.jpg) [IMG_20200725_115503](//muut.com/u/brownstoner/s3/:brownstoner:lrf5:img_20200725_115503.jpg.jpg) [IMG_20200725_115406](//muut.com/u/brownstoner/s3/:brownstoner:QzRD:img_20200725_115406.jpg.jpg) [IMG_20200725_115354](//muut.com/u/brownstoner/s3/:brownstoner:alY5:img_20200725_115354.jpg.jpg) [IMG_20200725_115421](//muut.com/u/brownstoner/s3/:brownstoner:xRuZ:img_20200725_115421.jpg.jpg) [IMG_20200720_095118 (1)](//muut.com/u/brownstoner/s3/:brownstoner:wV6A:img_20200720_0951181.jpg.jpg)

RobertGMarvin

in General Discussion 5 years and 2 months ago

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My next door neighbors had Thoroseal, or Thorolast stripped off the rear of his house several years ago. It looks good, but WHAT A MESS! Fortunately they had a good relationship with me, and their neighbor on the other side, and the contractor eventually cleaned everything up, but, having seen what they went through, I’d NEVER have such work done on my house.

restorationcontractor | 5 years and 2 months ago

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If it is actual Thoroseal it’s going to be very difficult to remove. If it was applied over previously painted brick it will be easier to break the bond.
If you can post some photos I can give you further advice.

Fort_Green_p_nut | 5 years and 2 months ago

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Thanks Cate and Arkady. I was thinking I’ll lightly scrap with a plastic paint scraper and then try using Citristrip. Seems like that stuff is less caustic than other chemicals.

Does anyone have a mason that they recommend to take this on if that doesn’t do the trick?

cate | 5 years and 2 months ago

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As Arkady says, a mason will be your best bet. If chemical stripping is needed, I would not DIY it but would hire a mason or, alternatively, someone with a lot of experience who does only stripping, especially if there are any layers of lead paint in there. We stripped some brick as part of a much bigger job, and the general contractor, who was excellent, handled it, but this is just not a job for non-specialists. They made some dangerous errors and in hindsight we regret not hiring our regular wood stripper to handle it. It would have been safer for all, faster, and the results would have been better.

Arkady | 5 years and 2 months ago

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I did that over 30 years ago. I was told that dripping water was the best way to do it but that wasn’t allowed because of a drought. Contractor used chemicals – a long, messy job. I’d get estimates from masons to find out what methods they suggest & try a small area d-i-y based on what they say & then decide what to do.