white stuff on brickwork

marmalize

how do you stop the 'white stuff' from appearing on brickwork...
It is old brickwork in a porch area and the white chalky coating (i have no idea if it has an official name) comes back fairly quickly after a clean and wash with mild bleach solution...
is there a way to prevent it coming back, eg. clear weather coat type paints/treatments..

thanks

macka0

Efflorescence is the white stuff,basically salt,is it internal face work or external ?

themacster

That sounds like efflorescence - soluble salts within the bricks coming to the surface and being deposited on the surface as the water evaporates. There may be a cause for your brickwork getting damp - is it exposed or is there anything that could be leaking onto it from above or behind? Is the mortar pointing perished? It's more a case of treating the cause rather than the symptoms.

marmalize

ahhh...external ..like an open porch area, and yep the pointing is a bit dodgy....will re-pointing solve it then??

Tom_Jones

effloresence = cheap bricks

brush it off on a dry day, pointing will have no effect

muckybutt

I see a lot of building sites use a dilute mix of hydrochloric acid and water through a pressure washer to get rid of these stains, quite common on new builds.