Is this brick staining?

[Herr Kutz]

Home&Garden gurus,

What is it called when you change the color of the bricks on a house...brick staining?

For some reason most of the houses for sale in my area have the same ugly look and the color of the bricks just makes it worse. I was browsing on zillow and saw a house with a lighter brick color which doesn't look too bad so I headed to google maps which has an older picture of the house in it's pre-renovation state.

How much would something like this cost and does it last forever once applied or is it something that has to be maintained?

 

[Homerboy]

Paint?

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Paint?

Paint.

 

[drnickriviera]

Hard to tell, could be a mortar wash/rub

 

[Homerboy]

Paint?

Paint.

Paint.

 

[Herr Kutz]

Paint.

Damn, it's that simple? Maybe just pressure wash before applying? Is there any other prep work required? If that's all it takes I would do it myself and make choosing a house a whole lot easier.

 

[Humpy]

By painting exterior brick you are turning a wall that might need maintenance every 25 years into something that might need maintenance every 5 and making repairs more difficult. It's also changing what was expected to be a porous assembly into something somewhat non-porous.

Might still be worth it if one is the style over substance type.

 

[Herr Kutz]

By painting exterior brick you are turning a wall that might need maintenance every 25 years into something that might need maintenance every 5 and making repairs more difficult. It's also changing what was expected to be a porous assembly into something somewhat non-porous.

Might still be worth it if one is the style over substance type.

That's the answer I'm looking for, thanks. I wonder if they make some sort of "stain"/coating that will allow the bricks to remain porous while changing the color?

 

[Humpy]

That's the answer I'm looking for, thanks. I wonder if they make some sort of "stain"/coating that will allow the bricks to remain porous while changing the color?

Here is a an older but still good place to start:

http://www.gobrick.com/Portals/25/docs/Technical Notes/TN6.pdf

There are a bunch of products that make various claims and could work well, I do not have enough experience with anything specific that I could recommend. What I do have experience with is dealing with some of the issues caused by simply spraying on a bunch of paint and calling it good. Just be sure it's fully thought through before deciding.

 

[Greenman]

By painting exterior brick you are turning a wall that might need maintenance every 25 years into something that might need maintenance every 5 and making repairs more difficult. It's also changing what was expected to be a porous assembly into something somewhat non-porous.

Might still be worth it if one is the style over substance type.

Why would sealing the face of the brick create any sort of problem? Is the concern trapping moisture between the membrane behind the brick and the semi permeable paint on the surface?

I know little about real brick exteriors as we don't see much of it around here.

 

[hardhat]

Normal paint generally doesn't adhere to brick very well and requires reapplication/touch up. Semiporous + many ruts and grooves makes painting a pain. Also, depending on the window installations there can be issues with trapped moisture in the brick wall as windows on brick buildings often don't have normal flashing, but I don't see how that problem would be worsened by paint. Brick also expands and contracts more than stud walls as there isn't much room between each brick, which leads to cracks and could cause the paint to shear.
These are generally minor problems, but they require some maintenance to deal with. Most people who buy a brick house like the appearance of brick, so there isn't usually a reason to spend more money painting.

 

[Humpy]

Why would sealing the face of the brick create any sort of problem? Is the concern trapping moisture between the membrane behind the brick and the semi permeable paint on the surface?

I know little about real brick exteriors as we don't see much of it around here.

Typically, it seems there are a lot of places for moisture to get in to the assembly, cracks in the mortar, gaps around windows, questionable flashing, etc. And the membrane is often just 15lb felt, with a ton of penetrations, so you want to give it the best chance of drying as possible, hopefully to the outside and not to the insulation inside. In a warmer, drier environment there probably won't be much of an issue because brick can hold moisture pretty well. At some point enough water will begin causing a thicker paint film to fail, leaving little option but to keep repainting or figure out a way to remove it all. Add in a few freeze/thaw cycles to a wall with trapped moisture and the mortar and softer brick will begin to crumble.

Like so many things construction related it just depends on the overall picture. If everything else is good some paint won't be a big deal, if things are already sketchy beneath the surface it could the final ingredient in f'ing up the whole show.

 

[Humpy]

Normal paint generally doesn't adhere to brick very well and requires reapplication/touch up. Semiporous + many ruts and grooves makes painting a pain. Also, depending on the window installations there can be issues with trapped moisture in the brick wall as windows on brick buildings often don't have normal flashing, but I don't see how that problem would be worsened by paint. Brick also expands and contracts more than stud walls as there isn't much room between each brick, which leads to cracks and could cause the paint to shear.
These are generally minor problems, but they require some maintenance to deal with. Most people who buy a brick house like the appearance of brick, so there isn't usually a reason to spend more money painting.

I'd agree that the main issue is adding maintenance to a somewhat maintenance free material.

An over-zealous painter using the wrong product in the wrong application (i.e. went to Home Depot with good intentions and got a sprayer and some super-duper exterior paint) can cause some real issues down the road.