[J-W-C]

Please could someone help if at all possible:

I have been asked to clean the outside brick-work of a house

there is ivy marks where this has been pulled down and from what I can see years of traffic film on the ridged bricks (just dark dirty looking) the bricks have like a wave pattern. I will try and find a pic somehow, hope some will know what I mean.

does anyone know how to clean this  ?

I have a honda petrol PW kicking out 15 litres per minute and have a few nozzles and a lance.


Any idea on how long this roughly should take it is a 4 bed semi (standard type semi no extentions)


Is there anything that could cause me problems ?

JWC

[Rob_Mac]

I am cleaning a Sainsbury's in Banbury, at the moment, 18 years of green build up and the original builders snots on the rh side elevation & back elevation.

140 metres by 15 metres in 2.5 days.

The ivy will fly off with a turbo nozzle attached. Be prepared for a lot of cleaning up, price in a full UPVC, gutter & window clean.

Is there a good flow from the water source??

Rob

[stalwart]

I have been asked to clean the outside brick-work of a house

what type of brick,thats your 1st question

[Rob_Mac]

Why would that be the first question?

Rob

[stalwart]

what type of brick,ok come clean my 2nd yellow stock wall,you make one false move i sue you
What if i have close face flettons will you leave the face the same as it was?
Also red rubbers,try removing paint from them and leave good as new

DO research on the surface 1st before you start hitting it

"the bricks have like a wave pattern" sounds to me like cut reds,soft/hard faced,easy to damage

[Rob_Mac]

The brick I work on predominantly is exceptionally soft, I don't need to know its name as I presume that if I treat the brick and any other surface with the usual caution I do on every job I do then I will have no issues

if I do work on a brick that I am unsure of how well it will clean I will try and score it with my fingernail, If it marks then I use caution. Otherwise I file my nail .

I admire your brick knowledge!!

Rob

[Rob_Mac]

I've just found this site for anyone who has a need to identify the surface they may work on www.huwsgray.co.uk/bricks'

Rob

[Rob_Mac]

Also been on another site where I pulled this -

Common bricks have low compressive strength and are of lower quality than engineering or facing bricks as no attempt is made to control their colour or appearance. They should not be used below ground and are generally used for internal brickwork only.
The term "frogged common" is sometimes used as a generic term for "flettons" or LBC faced commons. These are bricks that have a common coloured base and then have different face colours added.

I worked on what I will presume are these, frogged common only the other day and again I would say are used a great deal on my works - I have removed all sorts of contaminants from them, with all sorts of chemicals and have lost some of the face but not enough that it would have made a diference.

Rob

[J-W-C]

Mabe I better check again on what bricks looking at theat site, that you for the help people.

Maybe this house has yellow bricks that looked black dirty, I will check and post back next week.

Thanks again

[martin19842]

hi there

the road film on the bricks, should be blasted off as opposed to pressure washed off, pressure washing can have the effect of pushing the contaminant into the brick, or any other surface, as opposed to removing off of the face.

blasting, whether itbe grit, soda, dry ice, has an abbrasive effect that removes the dirt from the face of the surface, however you do need to make sure that you dont blast too much at the surface because depending on what the surface is it can damage it.  but that is the same whether you were pressure washing, brick acid cleaning, or blasting.

good luck

regards

martin