Exterior paint removal fail - What next?

[John Williamson]

So I had some grand ideas to return my home to its former brick faced glory by removing the exterior pain which has been built up over 120 years. Initial trials with a DOFF system looked very promising but unfortunately it turns out that we just got lucky (or unlucky) with the trial patches and there is old ead paint underneath which nothing will touch. The DOFF guys tried some seriously evil graffiti remover which is not available to the general public and nada

So question now is what would you do next? I'm thinking of patching missing pointing and just go for an exterior sandtex over the top of everything but one of the problems I was trying to fix is some damp walls inside that the surveyor said could potentially be worsened by the masonry paint not allowing it to breathe.

Would you go for a breathable masonry paint like the ones from Earthborne or think that there's no point given the paint which just wont shift and is obviously not breathable anyway

 

[cross thread]

Been working on a building and the owner had a “dustless blasting company in” to remove paint worked a treat

 

[John Williamson]

Been working on a building and the owner had a “dustless blasting company in” to remove paint worked a treat

Thanks. Yes I had some done internally. It's horrifically expensive and also has a tendancy to destroy the front of the bricks which will make the damp even worse. I've now given up on removal.

Main issue is that it's too expensive for the companies to come out and do a trial so you're left with a lottery of paying for 4 hour minimum charge (£880) and charge a standard full day rate of £1500 (8am-4pm). That's the cheapest quote I found

 

[John Williamson]

I had a play with an old fashioned cold chistle and this stuff is absolutely bullet proof

 

[foxhole]

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