to welcome spring. I am slightly concerned that the brick wall, brick and mortar may not survive the high pressure. Have you had a brick wall pressure washed?
Will be curious to see the responses to this. We have a beautiful curved chimney wall on the side of our house that someone long ago decided to paint white- everyone always tells us we should “blast” it to restore it to the original brick color - but the house is circa 1925 and we are concerned about the mortar/tucks/points etc. to do it.
You might check at a Rent-a-Center or Home Depot or a place that rents these machines.
Another place to check is your local school’s custodian - they sometimes have had to power wash grafitti off of the brick walls
Be careful not to get the wand too close to the surface or you will etch it. If the mortar comes out, it probably isn’t doing its job anyway and needs to be repointed.
Around Seattle, people powerwash everything because of the moss.
It’s north facing wall and moss is the problem. I am having a contractor do it. The contractor claims mortar should hold up. I am reading up and some people claim one should use lower power. Repointing is not that simple. It has white mortar and grape vine mark. I am reading up
Husbands should not be allowed to operate power washers!
I thought maybe “power washing a brick wall” was going to be some sort of a metaphor for a parental life experience!
Agree that husbands should not be allowed to operate power washers, my DH has a very bad track record in that department.
Handing it over to a contractor. It get pretty high if we include the chimney.
Good choice. I know someone who power washed his own place and got water up under clapboards.
abasket: "Will be curious to see the responses to this. We have a beautiful curved chimney wall on the side of our house that someone long ago decided to paint white- everyone always tells us we should “blast” it to restore it to the original brick color - but the house is circa 1925 and we are concerned about the mortar/tucks/points etc. to do it. "
You really need to research before doing this. Maybe there are new sealer products on the market but 20 years ago when we were restoring a house the advice was that sand blasting old paint removes the hard outer layer of brick and it will cause rapid deterioration. Power washing hard enough to remove a paint job would likely wash out the mortar.