Hi - I have found a soy based product to remove paint from brick, and it seems to work OK, but will need some elbow grease. Can anyone tell me if scrubbing brick with a wire brush will damage the integrity of the brick? Any thoughts or suggestions on removing the paint would be much appreciated. Thank you.
If this is a new home or one built with bricks that are less than 30 years old, using a wire brush will likely not harm the brick. If this is reclaimed brick moderate use of a wire brush may not harm it though heavy use might. These bricks tend to be reddish in colour and are made of a softer clay and once the hard outer coating is removed they tend to breakdown and absorb water and if it freezes where you live they will end up spalling, falling apart. Newer bricks don't tend to do this near as readily.
Do you have a LOT of paint to remove? I have used a semi-paste solvent stripper like Styrpeeze, and it worked quite well removing some old paint splatters on our brick house. (It has always worked much better/faster for me, than the Orange "safe" strippers that I had tried on other surfaces.) I let it work for longer than it asked, and then worked more fresh product deep into the brick/mortar with an old stiff brush, and it all came clean. Then rinsed well.
Peel a Way, #7 ?, has also been mentioned here as a great paint stripper for masonry surfaces as it rubberizes over the surface as it works and you peel off the layers, even those deep into pores of masonry/brick. I believe it is a bit more expensive, if you are doing really large areas, but may be worth it in time and effort.
