Removing paint from bricks

[John Fox]

A Victorian brick wall in my daughter's garden has been ruined by someone painting HALF of it with a bright blue paint. It looks like emulsion. Some of the bricks are starting to crumble a little.
Is there a product that would remove the paint or should I try a wire brush?
Titchmarsh has a lot to answer for!

[jno]

there are paint solvents, yes, though you can never be sure how well they'll work on any given paint. Homebase should have a range. They're liquid, you just paint them on

[rabbitygirl]

I wish it was against the law to paint bricks - they are never improved and you get a life time of maintenance or efforts at removal. My friend is getting me to check if this question comes up. I remember reading years ago that for small areas of paint you could try rubbing a broken brick on it to sort of sand it off. But I think some detective work in the DIY stores may help.

[jno]

agreed, rabbitygirl. I live in a street of lovely redbrick houses and several of them are painted. In fact, most of those are painted RED. Are people mad?

[theonlyone]

I used a brick cleaner which I bought in a builder centre , worked ok ,but is acid based , so use with care .

[bricks]

Paint just soaks into the bricks and mortar. Sandblasting is probably the only way.
On a fireplace, I've tried all sorts of paint strippers to no avail , I then tried burn it off with a blow torch that was a little more successful but still left paint in crevices and in the mortar and it was very slow. On the area where I tried to use paint stripper it had no effect at all!