Easiest way to prepare a brick wall for painting?

Evening all.

I plan to paint the back wall of my house. Currently it is painted an awful red, which might have looked nice when it was done, but now it looks very dull, and some of the paint is flaking off, I think just because of years of weathering.

I guess I need to get most (or all?) of the old paint off, or can I just get the flaky bits off and then paint over it?

If I have to get the old paint off, how will I do that? Do I even need to? What happens if I'm supposed to get the old paint off but don't?

 

Well theres a can of worms Dave:DOH:

You can just take the flaky bits off & repaint, but you don't know when the other bits are going to fail & take the rest off.

The best thing for removing old masonry paint is Tavec 201 but thats about £250 a tub. It breaks the bond between the paint and the substrate.

Otherwise, get someone to hit it off with a doff machine, superheated water(not steam) that blasts the bejasus out of it.

 

What is the wall made of, brick, stone, or pebble dash ?
What do you mean by PAINT, is it household gloss, or cemcoat, or even RED TILE PAINT

Our brick backyard wall in the North East was lime wash, WHITE, The Cottage in Scotland SNOWCEM CREAM

Jack McHammocklashing

 

Sorry, it seems I missed off loads of detail (shows how much I know about these things )

Its an ordinary brick and mortar wall. The house was built in 1906, and was one of many 'stock' houses built by the local iron foundary owners as affordable housing for the workers and their families, so nothing posh or unusual, just bricks and mortar. I don't know if that tells us anything, but this isn't my area of expertise

The paint that's on there, I guess, is just masonry paint. I could be wrong, but I've seen the same red on many walls, including in my mam's back yard (and I know she used masonry paint).

When I peel off some of the loose bits, it feels slightly flexible, almost like peeling clingfilm off.

The paint I have for it, waiting to go on, is just cheap masonry paint, B&Q's own brand I think.

 

Would it be possible to take it off with a pressure sprayer?

 

Ahh, more information

It will have been built with lime mortar, therefore you want to use a limewash to cover it. Not masonry paint that doesn't breathe.

The reason it feels like clingfilm is that its been holding in the damp.

 

A pressure sprayer didn't really work on ours last year Dai. I'd be inclined to go with Ziggy's suggestions. We had a re-paint after this last autumn and it's all peeling off already.

If you want a job done properly...........

 

Ah, that's interesting Zig.

Before I bought the place the surveyor reported that the place was damp. We put that down to a whole in the roof that we knew about (and had fixed) because there's no sign of damp in the house, and the damp course is in.

Some of the brick work has been re-pointed at some time, and I'd decided that it was just an amatuer job because the new mortar is peeling off in places and looks very different to the mortar underneath, which to me looks intact, just a bit different to the usual.

So if its lime mortar, and I need limewash instead of masonry paint, then where would I get this limewash, and can you get it in different colours or is it always just white?

Cheers

 

Plenty of colours here:



Limewash Colour Chart

 

My pleasure Dave.

The replaced pointing that you've found will be due to a lack of understanding between the tradtional methods and the new stuff.

Mortar has traditionally been sacrificial in favour of the masonry, be it brick or stone.

Its always cheaper to re point or re render than to replace the masonry.

The trouble has been, since about 1950 onwards, this has been forgotten, especially by banks & building societies, who insist that it all has to be replaced, with no building knowlege at all:DOH:

You need a breathable mortar and a breathable lime wash, which can be pigmented to almost every colour you want (the basic is white)

 

I got something RIGHT ?????
Not bad for an old Newbie

Jack McH

 

Thanks for all the info. I think I'll 'cool me boots' and take time to remove the old paint before I do anything. I've been picking it off a bit at a time every time I nip out for a smoke.

The main focus at the moment is my evening chillout area, which is really coming along nicely now. The quarter circle patio in the corner is nearly done (behind schedule), and I've painted the fence at that section. The back wall of the house suddenly became the focus because having painted the fence and nearly finished the patio, the back wall of the house suddenly looks very scruffy.

I've been adapting my way of thinking. I used to do things quick and cheap but now I'm coming round to the idea that if I'm going to be here for a while, I might as well take the time to try and do a good job.

I'm going to take all the advice here on board, and work on it a bit at a time

 

Fair play Dave, not worth rushing it.

Any paint you can peel off will let the masonry dry out

Had the same problem with a job last week, some "bright spark" had painted bitumen over the bricks below the damp proof course, holding in the damp.

Where did he think the damp was going to go ?

 

Funnily enough, when I was building my patio, I was worried about letting damp into the brickwork, even though I kept the patio height below the damp course.

To separate the patio from the house, I used a ft wide 'buffer zone' filled with round rocks. A mate of mine had suggested that I paint the bricks with something watertight as an extra precaution, but my gut instinct told me that if I did so, any moisture that was already in there (or that came up from below the ground) would be stuck in there with only one escape route, through the plaster inside the house.