Cleaning bricks

[Cgas]

Just a quick one does cleaning bricks with muriatic acid actually work or does anything ?

Advise appreciated !
TIA

 

[pilsbury]

Bloody hell! pointed with a catapult! I'd suggest starting with some brick acid and a very stiff brush - maybe wire brush. That's gonna take some elbow grease

 

[Cgas]

Bloody hell! pointed with a catapult! I'd suggest starting with some brick acid and a very stiff brush - maybe wire brush. That's gonna take some elbow grease

Them pictures do it justice mate it looks fookin horrendous in person...honestly. Have you had promising results with acid ? I'm tempted to just cut them out with grinder and replace as may be able to lay my hands on a few.

 

[theprinceofdarkness]

Brick cleaner will dissolve out the cement and lime so it leaves a skin of sand particle to stop the acid getting any deeper. So a good stiff brush after acid to knock of these particles, then more acid. . . If you can find one a brass wire brush that is good, but check that you are not damaging the bricks before going too far.
Frank

 

[vinn]

The blue bricks are, presumably, engineering bricks and it would have been better for them to be below ground instead of the what look like stock bricks soaking up the moisture?
As suggested above, your best bet would be to (get a brickie to) replace all the spoiled bricks. I say this without knowing much about brick cleaning.
Cleaning with acid can be a messy disappointing business that could leave the treated areas looking different from the rest of the brickwork.

 

[Cgas]

Appreciate the replies I'm going to give it a go and see how it looks after, worse case scenario I will remove and replace, just as a side note this is not my doing for reference

 

[paulandfrodo]

I've just used a hi-pressure washer to clean algae / dirt / mess from some existing imperial bricks.

I've attached a picture and you can see the line where they have not been cleaned. I was not sure it would work or not. Equally, I will prob. end up re-pointing this building as we have so much work going on, as such I was not bothered if some of the mortar was blasted out.

 

[paulandfrodo]

This is perhaps a better one - as it's mortar on the bricks.

 

[Cgas]

This is perhaps a better one - as it's mortar on the bricks.

Have you pretreated that with anything or is that literally just with a pressure washer ? Come out really well that mate fair play.

 

[paulandfrodo]

I dream about having pre-heated water on this site, we could actually get clean hands !!

No, this is straight cold water. I was impressed by it as well. Got my mate who supplied the kit and did half the building - £100 well spent I thought !