Looking for a tool for cleaning bricks

googlefast

I need to clean the bricks in an external wall before repainting it, it's has old paint and dirt/dust built up on it as you can see in the picture, what's the proper tool for this job? I was going to buy a wire brush but there are different types and I wasn't sure which type would the right tool, any advice would be appreciated.

fenwick458

needle scaler
https://youtu.be/LfZOTcsjUkE

stuart45

I used a Hilti one to take off paint and some parging off on a job. Took about 10 hours. The electric one is quite heavy and noisy.
The stone being Chert is really hard, but it will destroy soft brickwork. You can see what it did to the mortar joints.

Grizzlebeard

Pressure Washer.
A Grit Blasting attachment would speed the job up no end, but don't over erode the pointing. I just use water usually.
Can probably thoroughly strip 10m of wall in half an hour or so.

stuart45

I wanted the joints knocked out on this job, it was getting lime repointed. They did try the pressure washer, but it wasn't up to it.
They had a price of around £800 for sand blasting, but he couldn't guarantee getting the parging off.

googlefast

fenwick458 said:

needle scaler
https://youtu.be/LfZOTcsjUkE

The bricks aren't very tough as they're really old and they've been exposed to the elements for a long time, needle scaler would easily break them.

googlefast

This job is starting to seem a lot more difficult that I thought it would be, are we sure that a wire brush would not suffice?

tonyh66

try a wire cup brush on an angle grinder, but be gentle.

googlefast

Grizzlebeard said:

Pressure Washer.
A Grit Blasting attachment would speed the job up no end, but don't over erode the pointing. I just use water usually.
Can probably thoroughly strip 10m of wall in half an hour or so.

Any idea what model would be suitable for this job? i.e, 100 bar, or 150 bar, or higher than that?

Grizzlebeard

googlefast said:

Grizzlebeard said:

Pressure Washer. .....

Any idea what model would be suitable for this job? i.e, 100 bar, or 150 bar, or higher than that?

Sorry, no idea. Mine was a 25+ year old Karcher. (Buried in a shed last 5 years.) Used mainly for de-rusting iron, garden furniture, cleaning paths etc.
If you're repainting rather than leaving pristine squeaky-clean-naked you're only removing dirt and loose flakes. A more powerful one might save a bit of time, else I think it's just down to balancing £££s.
(edit: I cleaned green algae of a white garage wall, 10m x 3m in about 25-20 minutes in prep for new Sandtex. Not much cracked paint to remove though. Sure mine was pretty  powerful for 1990 but not for 2021.)