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I recently purchased my house. The previous owners painted the brick. I’ve considered and tried getting the paint off with pressure washing. It just looks dreadful. So I am considering covering the brick with insulation and then vertical siding, either in wood or a composite material.
My questions are these:
Should I leave an airspace behind the siding?
How do I go about insulating, if I need an air space?
What would the treatment be where the siding meets the foundation line?
Any help would be much appreciated.
Replies
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Didn't Archie Bunker have an aluminum siding salesman sell him siding to put over his brick house?
Too bad about your brick! Do your reasearch before you do anything. There are school buildings around here that have insulation (ridgid foam) outside masonry walls and a layer of brick outside that . They have had some incredible mold problems.
You might also consider stucco. Sorry I can't give you any recomendations or resources to look into, I don't imagine many people find themselves having to side over their brick.
steve
*Can you repaint? I don't think I'd ever personally paint over bare brick, but don't mind (and rather like) the look of painted brick. Brick is one of the most maintenance-free and durable siding options out there...it'd be a shame to hide it...You may also want to check with a building restoration contractor...they typically specialize in restoring brick exteriors of old buildings. They may have a solution for you that allows you to keep the brick...Just my opinion...
*Look into having it sandblasted. Hope you got a good price on the painted brick home.Brick should never be painted because it needs to breathe. Paint holds the moisture in and it is likely to flake apart sooner from frost hurting the structure of the binders in the brick. Don't know why people do this but it makes about as much sense to me as painting the windows on a car.
*"Look into having it sandblasted"b No No NO!!!!Sandblasting will remove the harder outer surface of the brick and ruin it.FWIW, EIFS was originally dev'd in Europe to deral with all of those old masory buildings.Consider using EIFS applied by a good, trained installer.(Yes, EIFS ghas had problems, but the problams are with improper installation and an older approach.)
*Bob, Restoration contractors do this all the time. You just need someone capable of doing it right. It's just like using a pressure washer - yes you can ruin things. This job is already ruined.
*I vote with Bob on this one.The brick may only be ruined in the eyes of the owner and may easily be salvaged by a trained restoration contractor.Gabe
*Piffen,b Hackers do it all of the time. Sandblasting brick disqualifies anyone from the title "restoration contractor." Based on everything I've read and learned and seen and done, any sandblasting will ruin the brick.For a while, ground walnut shells were thought to be ok, but if memory serves, they proved to damage the surfaces as well.I believe there is a form of "water blasting that uses strippers and then water, butrr don't know much about it.
*A few minutes later:I did a Google search on "brick sandblasting" and got a number of hits.There are several, differing points of view. Commercial places tend to think its okey dokey (at least in some cases)Non-commercial sources say "never" or at least "never on old brick" (without defining what they mean as old.)Here are a few sites I found:http://www.frii.com/~phouka/oldhouse/ren_brick.htmlBrick Industry Associationhttp://www.bia.org/html/section2.htmlof the Interiorhttp://www2.cr.nps.gov/tps/tax/rhb/masonry01.htmUS Park Servicehttp://www2.cr.nps.gov/tps/whatyou.htmhttp://www.restorationcentral.com/experts/restoration/remove_paint.html
*Bob,It depends entirely on the type of brick -- wirecuts, pressed and semi-engineering will be fine.Sand/Limes you'd have to do a test patch first and red-rubbers never -- the paint's probably harder than the brick!The pointing usually has to be re-done, but sand-blast is a reasonable method of re-furbishing brickwork --- done by an expert!
*Thanks Bob for the fine selection of web sites. And thankyou to everyone else for their input. I have yet to find a contractor that I think can get the paint off by "sandblasting" and have instead been investigating getting the paint off with strippers. Has anyone ever used or know anything about using a product called "Peel away"? I have visited their web site and talked to them on the phone. They believe that their product will take off all the paint with out any problems.The web site is http://www.peelaway.comAny body ever used this product?ThanksGraham
*I don't knoiw if it's "Peel Away" but there is a paint removal product which makes great claimns abouttaking multiple layers off easily with one application which has fairly regularly been panned by people who have tried it.try a test patch before commiting big $>
*Here in the Chicago area, a LOT of houses are common brick. Especially in the older neighborhoods, that brick can be very porous, and it starts to spall. So, it is very typical to see a painted brick house.Brick moisture in those houses was not a problem, as the "vapor barrier" was not known in the 1890s. Any moisture in the brick will move into the house and not cause spalling. I don't know about today's construction techniques.I also know that my parent's house was a painted common brick, and the paint was getting old looking and needed repainting--big time. I used (in the '60s) latex paint. I wetted the brick before painting to keep the resin from soaking into the brick. That paint job held up for 30 years--maybe more but I haven't been back to the house.
*You didn't say how old the brick was or in what climate.Some 19th century brick was very soft and had paint from day one to protect it, as JohnD said. 19th century painted brick building is also common in Syracuse, NY. So if the brick is old and soft, I vote for the walnut-shell sand blasting and another coat of paint. I have an 1879 interior basement partition wall that is crumbling because of the rising damp from the basement floor -- so sometimes you don't even need frost to get damage on really soft brick.If it's a modern brick and not in a freezing climate, it probably doesn't need paint to shed the rain water.BillP
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I recently purchased my house. The previous owners painted the brick. I've considered and tried getting the paint off with pressure washing. It just looks dreadful. So I am considering covering the brick with insulation and then vertical siding, either in wood or a composite material.
My questions are these:
Should I leave an airspace behind the siding?
How do I go about insulating, if I need an air space?
What would the treatment be where the siding meets the foundation line?
Any help would be much appreciated.