Weatherproofing old softish bricks

[Ladybrickie]

Hi everyone,
Please can anyone recommend a product that would help to seal/weatherproof old imperial bricks? I realise there are several products on the market but are there any that really stand out as being miles better?
I have cleaned over 9,000 of the old bricks from our old house using a scutch hammer and they are real beauties, many with fingerprints in from the making. They fall into three main colour and texture types, two of these categories I'm not worried about as they are very hard and 'glass like' but the reddish orangey ones are quite soft and I feel I should help them a bit by painting or spraying something on to help them shrug off our ghastly climate. Any advice would be helpful. Thanks, C

 

[noseall]

Our climate is not all that ghastly.

The weather conditions that cause bricks to perish occur infrequently but when those conditions do occur, only the weakest exposed bricks suffer.

Make sure that when the house is re-built that you weather strike the joints thoroughly and do not skimp on this part of the build. Good compo (mortar) and good pointing go a long way to preserving the masonry.

 

[stuart45]

If you do want to seal some brickwork make sure it's siloxane based as this allows the walls to breathe. Try and use the softer ones in less exposed areas. It's the freeze/thaw cycles that damage the old bricks. Hard cement pointing on old brickwork with lime mortar joints often causes damage.