Removing paint from brick

[peteml]

Patricia,

You did a wonderful job on the paint on your fireplace. But I'm in the opposite situation. In our house the previous owners painted over the brick fireplace and did a terrible job. Does anyone have any suggestions how to remove the paint?

Thanks

[mrcaptainbob]

Sandblast it. Make up a plastic 'room' that encloses just the fireplace, rent a compressor and their sandblaster, get the sand and go at it. Breathing mask, eye, ear and skin protection is a MUST! Sounds like a real chore, but the results are terrific. A worse chore (to me) would be to deal with liquid anything and having to rinse the caustic stuff off. Will always splash and there's still the requirements of covering everything with plastic for protection...and...it won't be as clean as the sandblast! I did that on our fireplace and it looks brand new. Vacuum up the grit, take down the plastic....you're done. Will take only a few hours.

[MrStan]

Never done this myself, so I don't know first-hand, but I will be doing it soon on the front of my all brick house, and have been researching it. However, everything I read about removing paint from brick says to use sandblasting as a LAST RESORT. It can cause the mortar to loosen, and fall out.

[mrcaptainbob]

Thanks for the word on that. Although I haven't read about that anywhere else, I will keep an eye on it. What may be a factor is that it is a fireplace surround and not exposed to weather. Thanks again....