Bubbling brickwork under exterior paint...HELP!

bubaloo

Hello, this is my first ever post so please bare with me 🙏🏼

I will attempt to post a picture of said wall after I have told you my problem. The paintwork on our house has been bubbling recently and I decided to pick at the paint this morning. It came away from the bricks very easily and underneath, the brick has white residue and appears damp, as does the mortar. This is all the way up to approximately 2 metres from the floor so I imagine that it's not a rising damp problem?
Could it be that whoever painted it before we bought it maybe used the wrong paint!
The worst of it is on our rear single story extension.

Please ask if you need anymore information. And thanks in advance for any help!!

bubaloo

I'm sorry, I have no idea how to post a picture of the wall! If anyone can help that would be great?

road2manchester

When you put paint over bricks you seal in all the damp and prevent breathing and therefor the lime in the mortar can leach. Once damp is behind the paint it can only peel. pictures will help.

bubaloo

It won't let me paste my pictures on here? Does anyone know how I can do this?

FreeBear

Upload the image to somewhere like https://imagebin.ca/ or pasteboard.co/ and then paste the link in to your post.


A couple of questions for you... How old is the property ?
Do you know if it is solid brick or cavity walls ?

silvercar

You will have problems posting pictures as you are a new user.

Upload a picture to one of the hosting sites. Then post the link with some spaces in the URL. This will fool the forum into thinking you are not posting a picture. Someone can then copy your URL without the spaces.

societys_child

Not sure pictures are needed, it's 99.9% certain to be efflorescence (salt dissolving from the brickwork)

bubaloo

It won't let me post it as I am a new user. My house was built roughly 1930s and I think it may be cavity wall?

bubaloo

[ ur l]h tt ps /imag[/url] ebin.ca/ v/3LA Od04qPb4U
There are spaces in the URL.

bubaloo

https /ibin. co/3LAVWQWKBE6H.jpg

bertiewhite

I had a similar problem with my stone cottage. I noticed that water was seeping out of cracks in the paint and further investigation revealed hollow areas behind the paint. It seems that the previous owner had patched up the stonework with cement mortar and then used non-breathable paint on top.

I've since used lime mortar and a proper breathable paint (that's what it says on the tin, anyway) and the walls seem to be drying out, but it's taken a few months.

Hope this helps.