Ever done DIY sandblasting?

If it's just 20% then it's damn expensive regardless.

I'll put 20 quid on you doing it yourself and hugely regretting it. On day one.

It's a bit like when I move house. I always want a company to come in, pack everything, move and then unpack.

Then they quote me and I think 'Nah, I can do that myself'.

I hate moving house. *Really* hate it. Because I never just pay someone to do it for me.

I suspect you'd end up feeling the same. And surely there's some rather serious protective clothing required?

£8.5k for 10 days
£850 a day
How many guys on site? 2-3?
Machinery, wages, insurance, clear up etc?

£850 a day doesn't sound bad and it reads as though it's a big house?

This was always my thinking back when I was self employed.

If I did it myself, how much money would I lose by not working?

Now I'm employed, I still look at things the same way. So exactly what @BoardinBob said.

Please have a look at this:

HSE.GOV.UK "https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/guidance/cn7.pdf"

You could always just hire a blasting system yourself, Initial google puts machines in at £300/week, plus medium obviously, sieve etc.

https://www.tedbartinkerhire.co.uk/tool-hire.php?tool-hire=grit-blast-pot

I'd get someone in. I've worked around blasters and they're welcome to it.

Something of that size is not a diy job.
Get the pros in.

Is it actually sand? In the paint world hardly anyone does that anymore as silicosis is a bitch.

You'll need containment for the dust and a way to dispose of waste.

The equipment needs more than one person to run. You'll need someone to supply abrasive and run the compressor.

When I've done it you need some decent overalls, heavy gloves and an air supplied respirator. I did a couple of hours and it was grim. Heavy, hot, couldn't see, grit gets everywhere and quite dangerous, for grit blasting steel the pressures are high and the abrasive pretty effective at cutting through meaty things.

Get some more quotes but by the time you've hired kit, bought abrasive, got scaffolding and done all the prep you'll probably wish you'd paid someone for the job.

Get a specialist blast company with a dustless system, similar to vapour blasting.

somebody like this
https://www.youtube.com/c/MickBlackleySandBlaster/videos

Hi @chrisyork I am a specialist lime contractor - lime harling/render, pointing and masonry work. We have never used sand or grit blasting but we often are in situations where we need to clean masonry or lime harling or remove as much masonry paint as possible form older properties prior to re-harling, limewashing or pointing. This usually involves mechanical means or steam cleaning.

First off are you 100% confident that blasting will get you back to a surface finish that you will be happy with? It is very hard to get paint off masonry without some changes to the appearance of the underlying surface, so I would want to be completely confident of that, or have a plan B for when it turns out not as expected. I would want to see a trial area before I committed to a big spend.

Price wise it's difficult to say where your quote is without your m2 but as others have alluded it's not completely out of the park for a specialist contractor to do a very nasty job for 10 days.

I do know several people who have used klingstrip type products to remove masonry paint from stone buildings and this has been successful. It is still a chemical product but it will be considerably easier to handle and dispose of than traditional strippers https://www.stripperspaintremovers.com/knowledgebase/removing-paint-or-other-coatings-from-brickwork/ , I have never used them myself though.

@Vader With regards to masonry paint on lime render, for mechanical means do you just use scrapers etc or is there a power tool that you recommend? I have a lot to remove and have started in small areas just scraping but it takes forever. I have looked at needle guns but worried they are too aggressive. And does steam help significantly?

Sorry for thread hijack.

@chrisyork

I think that regardless of the answer, the entire consensus is that you absolutely should not attempt this yourself.

As for the details, @vader would appear to have a wealth of knowledge on the subject.

You could of course just leave it. Unless your house is pink/flourescent etc. etc.

It's not a DIY job and is very messy. Your neighbors will hate you.

Another option is CO2 blasting - same principle but it fires pellets of solid CO2 that magically disappear and give us nice summers....at least you don't have to sweep up the blast media. I have one at work that we don't use.

I use dry ice (CO2) cleaning at work for injection moulding tools. It works for loose dirt, oil, polymer residue, really well. Anything tougher than that takes time and lots of media.

It also needs 10bar of compressed air pressure and 10 cubic metres / minute of air volume to be effective. That’s a big compressor.

The dry ice is hideously expensive. Last quote I saw was £250 per 125kg. That was a few years ago.

house near my mums was soda blasted by these people, https://eco-sba.co.uk/ it looked ok

Thanks for the replies, okay I was thinking it’d be crazy to attempt myself but I’ve done so much on this house, ripping render off with a ladder and a hammer drill 🤣.
I’ve tried to remove the cream paint myself that’s underneath by paint stripper which just made a mess. Then tried a pressure washer with a masonry blaster end which has taken 50% of the paint off but before the brick was painted in some areas they ran a concrete over all the brick to make it a smooth surface.

Honestly the worst thing you can do to a building like ours.
We’re very confident we’ve been advised correctly as the guy who’s doing lime was incredibly knowledgeable and does heritage buildings etc

The YouTuber mentioned, thank you I actually saw him on there this afternoon and we’re going to get in contact with him!
Will check to see if any other links supplied can help us too

Oh by the way the reason I thought of doing it myself was because we have to have a wet sandblast as we live on the only road through the village. Apparently if you live on a major road as such it has to be a wet blast so it doesn’t affect other drivers with all the dust

@robola yes by mechanical I generally mean scrapers, picks etc but also needle guns which can work - you can hire from speedyhire for example. The difficulty with lime renders is that they are comparatively soft so that 'hitting' them does not result in the paint pinging or chipping off. Typically you make a small divot in the render, the paint cracks and gets slightly pushed into the divot which is not ideal. On cement or harder stone the paint will ping off in chips, it is slow laborious graft but does usually work. A sharp mortar pick or sharp chisel work well on these materials but not on lime render as you will almost certainly damage it

Steam is pretty effective but may not get everything off ie 20% remaining I would consider a good outcome. The last job we steam cleaned left some paint behind but did get the majority off. It can also remove some of the harl but typically this will not be noticeable once re-limewashed. On some older finishes this might not really matter as they are typically quite blobbly and rustic in appearance so after several eg 3-5 coats of limewash the rugosities will fill in and even out
A typical cleaning job would use a whole load of techniques to get paint off - there might be several layers of paint, different types of paint and of course where paint has been weathered it is often easier to get off than shaded areas out of the weather where it has maintained it's integrity.

The bottom line is that masonry paint on a lime harl is a big mistake that generally ends in tears and or a lot of hard work to remove it. But you probably know that already!

She great info above. One thing I would add is to check you are ok with the finish you will get. A house near me was blasted, and to be honest it's utterly ruined the appearance. It's looks like me brick and lost heaps of its charm.

My other point is about you mentioning grinding out the mortar. I would strongly advise you to look at other options. The house I mentioned above had this done, and in my humble view it looks awful. The beauty of older properties is often in the irregularities, the lumps, the bumps, the fact everything isn't dead straight. I've seen several houses that have had it ground out and they all look the same. Straight runs with a grinder. It's really nasty

Obviously this is just my opinion, it might just be that I've only seen shit jobs, but it's not something I'd even think about on our cottage. Manual raking if we ever need to. If it's lime render it's dead easy to scrape out.

Unfortunately you have picked a bad time for pricing blasting work.
In April they stopped the building trade using red diesel which has nearly tripled the fuel costs for the compressors.
The blast media and everything else has gone up crazily.
Blasting exterior paint off is potentially one of the more expensive blasts as, depending on the paint, it can be a nightmare to get off sometimes. It generally is a good thing to test blast an area first to get an idea, though different parts of the building can be easier/harder.
There is also a lot of gear to bring and setup just for a test so that would probably cost.
It sounds like you also have a thin render/ concrete wash under the paint, more potential hassle.
If going down the diy route don’t forget you also need a compressor big enough to run the blaster with a decent size nozzle, they aren’t cheap.
If you have to wetblast it that also adds to the cost as it is slower than dry blasting.

Or consider some external wall insulation. That will cover everything up, no need to strip and paint or render off.

Well I think the good news is that nextdoor had theirs done years ago when the builder renovated it, it’s the same brick too as you can see how it overlaps onto our side but it looks great as the bricks have those imperfections in.

The reason the grinding out and lime mortar has been advised is because the house is just brick, there’s no cavity walls and they’ve used concrete mortar, next door didn’t have their mortar changed and the specialist showed us the darker mortar colour in certain areas on their house and said “they’ll likely start seeing damp appearing in the not too distant future”. But yes it sounds like a concrete wash was used on ours to smooth the brick and then it was painted…… and then the top half was rendered over which has basically stopped the brick from being able to breathe!

I think this has all been done because the house owner had gone a bit crazy before he passed away, he addressed himself as Colonel on letters, however we know from speaking to family he was never a colonel. There’s a full steel carport with a £16k invoice and lots of solar panels too so I think he’s unfortunately been an easy target which is awful to think really.

We did look into these smart renders but we can’t see anything that will be breathable and although we don’t have damp now on a large scale (just a few small bits) if we don’t do something about it it will likely start getting worse.

The thing I hate most is everyone just wants to sell you something and you get so much conflicting information! Even the smart render companies said “yes we can do this no problem and yes our render is breathable” , but it sounds like it shouldn’t be applied to a house like ours yet they’d quite happily take the money to do the work!!

Really interesting Bomble these things when taken into account are bound to boost the price!

Just to add, you can run all the equipment on your own but I’d strongly recommend getting a professional company in on a job like yours👍

The reason the grinding out and lime mortar has been advised is because the house is just brick, there’s no cavity walls and they’ve used concrete mortar, next door didn’t have their mortar changed and the specialist showed us the darker mortar colour in certain areas on their house and said “they’ll likely start seeing damp appearing in the not too distant future”.

What?!!
Why is cement mortar a bad thing and why should it lead to damp*?
Was the "specialist" selling you the service by any chance?

There’s a full steel carport with a £16k invoice and lots of solar panels too so I think he’s unfortunately been an easy target which is awful to think really.

Solar panels? Sounds like he was a forward thinking guy!
It seems to me that the easy target may be elsewhere.
😬

* Is the house damp now?
It's been there over 100 years, why should anything change?
(I had a Victorian house with solid 9" walls and cement mortar - zero damp.
If it had been a potential issue I'm sure my architect dad would have said something when I totally refurbed it.)

Haha well we have done our own research and know that the house needs to breathe more than a modern house, we have no airbricks for example, this was then cemented (pardon the pun) by someone who came to quote. Which yes they will want the business, but you have to trust someone!!

How old is the house? Is the paint/render you want to remove a relatively new addition? Do you have any issues with damp presently (aside from your neighbours' discoloured external render)?

Do you know if the brickwork is built using lime or cement mortar?
Has it been raked out and pointed previously?
If the building is original and in good condition under the paint why spend 15k on rake out and point ?
If it's build with a strong mix there's every chance they will damage bricks and struggle to source proper sized ones to match
There are some good bricklayers some not so good and lime specialist pointers who have done a few days course and are then artisan conservation building trusted traders

The house probably about 120 years old, the painting and render was probably done 15 years ago and it’s just coming straight off most the walls with a bit of encouragement.

Sandblasting needs to be done because we want it back to brick for aesthetics but it’ll also need re-pointing in parts. Yes there are areas of damp which are getting much better since we moved in but still if we don’t do it properly it will just need doing later on in our life’s…. We’ve given it alot of thought too. STILL not got a quote from the sandblaster who initially responded to me (mick the blaster) , I literally hate trying to get hold of tradesman.

For me these trades need some serious regulation, if I replied to a customer then never replied after that I’d get told off…. However zero accountability!

For me these trades need some serious regulation, if I replied to a customer then never replied after that I’d get told off…. However zero accountability!

😳

Maybe Mick the Blaster has enough work on and just doesn't fancy your job?
Assuming Mick the Blaster is self employed, should he give himself a telling off?
The mind boggles!

I see what you’re saying but I wouldn’t have said anything about it aside from the fact the reply a while ago was was “yes no problems we can do that” after seeing photos of what was required, as you say though likely just need to be more patient. However we were told by other specialist tradesman “just keep chasing us as those who chase loudest get seen to first”. This is why I mentioned what I did previously

Just thought I’d add some context to the wording here.

So this is the front of the house, the almost removed top bit is the render that comes off with a chisel and light tap with a hammer (just breaks away) I’ll be getting the rest with scaffolding once we have the blaster lined up! Then below that is what feels like a concrete type coating on the bricks. Then halfway and to the floor is just some very hardy paint, you can see far left is where I used a masonry end on the karcher to blast the paint which has done half a job then we had a hosepipe ban.
Chased that sandblaster again twice this week and still nothing…

Btw wall on the boundary will be cleaned up too, but it’s low down the list at the moment.
You can see next doors has been done in the past (we can’t find who they used) but they used concrete mortar, on the side of the house the salts are already coming through the brick near the bottom and it’s only been like that 5 years

Have you looked in a caustic peel removal.
I think you basically paint thw house with nitromoors, then apply this special paper
When its dried you peel off the paper and the paint will come away from the wall with it.
I looked into it. And blasting, and a hot air gun, and decided sandblasting would damage the faces, so ended up removing the loose and over painting with sandtex pourous breathable paint

Thanks for the suggestion but it’s not just paint, there’s some form of concrete wash underneath once I’ve hammer drilled the loose render off…. At the front it’s only from halfway to the top of the house.

I was speaking to a passer by the other day who said Trevor the last owner, managed to get it off the bottom half of the house at the front, but if you could look at the bricks closely at the bottom they’re smooth so I think he had someone grind it back, then painted over.

It really is a bit of a pain as all we want is to expose the original brick which has such character but can’t get anyone to even quote except the guy that wants over 10 grand for doing it which will really eat into our finances!

I have seen a video where someone used a scutch comb chisel which to remove the remaining concrete render off I may try but also appreciate I’d have to be very careful as it may literally comb patterns into the brick!

Also now the timing isn’t great as missus is being induced for our firstborn TODAY!

Congrats on the new arrival. I look forward to seeing the finished brickwork in 10 years.

For comparison, my place is 120yo 3 storey 4 bed stone at the front and side and brick at the back and offshot. Just had scaffolding up to the top on the side and back, pressure watered and scraped to remove painted brickwork, quite a lot of repointing (from the chimney down), painting of walls and drainpipes, c8 days work £2k the lot. The guy who did it is regarded locally as not the cheapest but v good at his job. I did discuss stripping it back to brick but the consensus was probably too much damage to the bricks. The scaffolding was itemised as £570 (included in overall price).

When you say concrete all the time do you actually mean cement. As in cement mortar because I have no idea what concrete mortar is. I realise that maybe a baby arriving today may be distracting you but this is stw and correct terminology is far more important than the mere arrival of your first child. Get a grip man! 😂

And the really good news is that you'll not have time to give a **** about the outside of your house for years!

Haha I’ll take your words for it, I think yes you’re likely right being cement mortar, it’s been months since the lime pointer came to talk to us and the wording has clearly switched from cement to concrete!

I’ll get a close up photo of the brick that I’m referring to to help as well… looking at it again I do think a thicker grade grit will shift the coat that’s there, maybe the idea of a scutch comb chisel is overkill…

Another close up for those that are interested (we’ve been told the induction won’t be today so I’m keeping busy!)

So looks like we have brick at the very bottom, then it looks like it had the cement wash, then a layer of yellow paint then topped with the grey-ish render on top.

I know blasting will remove the render and the paint but I bet it won’t remove the cement that recessed into the bricks!

Certainly not even close to an expert, but a fair bit of the stuff on top looks like it could be taken off with a broad cold chisel, working upwards from below. Then, could a wire whizz-wheel be used to take the paint off the brick?

I’m just chucking vague ideas around to see if there are options that might work that involve low costs but may be slower.

I'm going to predict that your soon to be born child will be coming around from their house and saying "when do you reckon you'll get that finished dad?" 🙂

Armchair Internet expert opinion
The bricks have spalled hence the rendering.
In your picture the face of the brick had come away leaving the soft interior open to the elements. Either through freezing and thawing,or movements.
This is why itlooks to have had a lime coat amd paint, further cracking, delamination had subsequently occurred and the second one a rough cement render had been pudding on top.
If you try to remove these layers chances are that many bricks will have also failed or will fail in the process, as the cement bonds into the substrate of the brick.
This is a problem, spalled bricks let in moisture, look nasty and are hard to change.
The next problem is what to do.
If ypu go aheaf and do your best to remove 2 coats of render you will potentially let moisture in through the walls. It has to go through as cement is waterproof. Sealing the bricks, and re rendering is one option but any ingres from roof or window leaks will be trapped in the brick plus any moisture produced internally from breathing, cooking, showers, washing etc will sit in the wall.
You could lime wash the outside, someone on here does it for a job.
In my ' i visited a brick factory once in the 1980s so im an expert' opinion, if you have at the faces with anything the level of abrasion requirement will spall other bricks and pop tjem open too. Not what you want to hear.
I could also be totally wrong and only the brick in the photo will fail amd all the others will clean up perfectly and look smashing

So that part I scraped off was with an SDS chisel and a tile removing 50mm end I think

There’s so much work by the looks of it, and some bricks will be ruined but we do have plenty to replace those that I pulled out of a flowerbed (around 200) .

It’s turning out to be a huge headache as all we want is back to brick, remove the porch and stick an oak arch on the front. I have it in me to get scaffold up and just sds drill full on as much as poss but by the sounds of it time isn’t going to be on my side!

Aaaaaaargh!

The bricks have spalled hence the rendering.

You may well be right but, if so, why this property and not next door?

I'm not sure what the answer to this whole this is but I'm doubtful you're going to get the brick finish that you're after without spending a ridiculous amount of money.
Think I'd be looking to see if there's another 'look' that you're happy with.

I have it in me to get scaffold up and just sds drill full on as much as poss but by the sounds of it time isn’t going to be on my side!

This is obviously your first child!! Frankly I'd be surprised if you're allowed to do anything louder than boil the kettle for the next 12 months!

Hahaha that made me laugh, I’m under no illusion that I won’t be able to do what I was saying as not naive enough to go “I know better”

We booked the pointers to work March 2023 around 1.5 years ago expecting it’d have been well untruly done by now, how can everyone on “Homes under the Hammer” get projects done so quickly!

We even tried to get a builder to take it on and weren’t interested as it wasn’t enough……

I’ll bring it up again with the Missus when baby’s here and I don’t put that in her head hours beforehand, I’m thoughtful like that 😆

Similar armchair expert here. I am in the I have done a limework course so am obviously at the a little knowledge is dangerous stage.

You say your neighbors had there house done? Was there render done at the same time? To the same method if not comparing results may give you false data.

Also when you say you tried a pressure washer do you mean full power industrial in one? Or a little karcher?

The bricks are probably softer than modern London bricks (yuk!) But not necessarily soft bricks, however removing the render will have a high chance of damaging the bricks.

I think one of best points made on page one was do a test area. It may be as I suspect going back to brick fully for athletics is not achievable and it may be worth removing as much as possible then perhaps some wood cladding or something else as a finish.

Also steam removal sounds worth looking into.

If it can't be removed and you want a back to brick look have you considered fitting brick slips over the top of existing?
Don't know if from your name you're based in York or whether that's just your name. But either way, I can highly recommend a local company Brick Slips Fitters
A lot of their work is interior but they also do full-house exterior work.

Or maybe go tile hung frontage.
If you could source enough reclaimed tiles from 1900s it could get close to the effect your after.
Be shedloads cheaper as, i think, you drill and screw batterns on and hand the tiles off the batterns.
Would slightly increase the weather proof of your house, maybe be a tiny bit warmer, and, if ypu can find something similar in colour to next door, kinda blend in.

Well I just thought I’d post an update to this….

So tomorrow we have a company coming down from Newcastle who seem very reputable, to do some test patches. It’s just the way the bricks have been smoothed over with a basecoat that makes us nervous it won’t work but for £600 for the day even if it doesn’t work we save a fortune and get to rethink. If it does work they’ll re-book the whole job for January and take the £600 off the whole job price!

More updates tomorrow as soon as I can… talk About suspense!!

Is there really no feasible way to kill two birds with one stone and get your solid walls externally insulated and use aged/tumbled brick slips to get it aesthetically back to your liking? Perhaps there were even be a grant to help, not looked into it myself as we already have cavity wall insulation.

Well….. we have a result! So it turns out their lightest media was enough to strip all the render as well as get into the tyrolean that had been covering the bricks to make them smooth.

Chuffed to bits and booked in to now get it all done January, didn’t even damage the mortar or the brick face by the looks and it’s come up exactly how we wanted!!

looks good, sometimes it pays to get people in who know what's what.

I agree, I mean he said they had £60k’s worth of kit there. Compared to the £700 I was thinking of spending…. No comparison 😂

That looks really promising, hope it all looks that good when they've finished

Thought I posted this on here, or maybe another thread but to repeat.

I heard somewhere/sometime that if you sandblast brick or stonework that you take the weathering off it and make the surface porous to the point it can absorb moisture(or something like that) and it can lead to damage, crumbling or dampness, and you need to seal it with something(no idea what) after you've cleaned it back to bare.

Anyone any info on this ?.

Your pic is funny.

Bloke with a message on his back saying "your safety is our safety" while balancing precariously on an old lichen covered wall 😆

Facade cream is what you want on the bricks if they are porous.

Just thought I’d provide an update…. Scaffold is up, sandblaster is coming from 9th Jan.
House threw us another curveball though when we went to destroy the old porch….. the main electricity cable comes up from the floor and up the porch wall into the house!
Obviously I aren’t touching that and looks like it’s going to cost at least £850 to get the powergrid to relocate it!!