Cleaning water based bitumen off victorian brick

[bobbucket]

Hoping for some advice here as a bit lost!

We live in an 1860s terrace (workers houses so not top workmanship) with mostly original brickwork except some bits which are reclaimed (car crashed into house a few years before we bought). Three days ago the neighbours had a water based bitumen roof treatment put on their (unfelted!) roof - don't ask :roll:

Anyway, cue rain yesterday and it (obviously in watered down form) has flowed into the guttering and down the length of our front wall (about 1.5 ft across) and also onto our sills and windows. The roofer has been and said he will order some 'brick acid' to clean it off. We asked if it will end up changing the colour of the brick (ie. remove the grime as well) and he says if it does he will do the whole wall. Don't want to be too dramatic but I am extremely upset that the front of our house has been ruined.

Now I know nothing about masonry. I have called our insurers and they say if we have it all in writing - what happened, what he does etc, then we can still claim if he doesn't do it to our satisfaction. But wondered what you'd do in this situation? What will brick acid do (I am guessing he means hydrochloric)? Is a different approach needed because it is old? The wall in this area is already a bit damp (as is much of our house to some extent ) - will that have an impact?

Would be really grateful for any advice.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Don't know what to advise, except that is just so awful and you have my heartfelt sympathy!

They should pay up some sort of compensation, but there's no way I'd let someone come and pour acid over my house before I'd done an awful lot of research and tried gentler methods. Have you scrubbed any sections with soap and picking bits off gently with scrapers? Has it adhered too firmly for that?

If acid is called for, I'd want only a few bricks done in an inconspicuous place so that I could monitor the colour change, and also see if any spalling or increased crumbling took place over winter. If there was no adverse effect, then I'd have them back in the spring to make good. Some of the paint may have weathered off by then?

Hope someone with more of a clue comes along shortly to advise!

 

[bobbucket]

Thanks for the reply. It has soaked into the brick rather than being anything you could scrap off (probably because it was so watered down). We tried scrubbing it off yesterday but to no avail.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Oh dear. Well, I'd ring Strippers of Sudbury http://www.stripperspaintremovers.com/about.htm for a chat if I were you. Don't worry, I'm sure it will come off.

 

[Jon Maine]

I would look into hiring a doff or jos machine or getting a contractor out to do it for you.

http://www.themonument.info/learning/cleaning.asp

Not sure which one you would need but I know at least one of them will shift bitumen from masonry. With the good old tinternet you should be able to track some local answers down.

 

[Flyfisher]

You say the rain caused this problem three days after the stuff was applied to your neighbour's roof - does that imply it will happen again next time it rains? If so, is there anything that can be done to the guttering, even temporarily, to ensure that any more of the foul stuff can't be washed onto your property?

PS: Why is the guttering above your property leaking - was that caused by this gunk stuff?

 

[Jon Maine]

You say the rain caused this problem three days after the stuff was applied to your neighbour's roof - does that imply it will happen again next time it rains? If so, is there anything that can be done to the guttering, even temporarily, to ensure that any more of the foul stuff can't be washed onto your property?

PS: Why is the guttering above your property leaking - was that caused by this gunk stuff?

Very valid point, you need to be sure it has stopped washing off and ask the question of why it has made it onto your wall out of the guttering which would seem to be a sure sign of a further problem.

 

[bobbucket]

Thanks - yes the bracket on the guttering (which is on the neighbours side) went which is how overflowed. I have this bit in hand and am going to get it fixed asap. The houses are of the two up two down variety and have shared guttering. Our neighbour is not hot on maintenance (massive understatement) and I guess we just put it on our list of things to get sorted, not imagining this particular scenario. Our road was practically flooding yesterday and it was obviously too much.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Well I hope your neighbour buys you several crates of wine to say sorry.

In my experience, though, people don't care anywhere near as much as they should. :evil:

 

[chuckey]

White spirits, turps, petrol, gunk, swarfega. What ever you do will cause some staining, I would go with the water miscible ones (gunk swarfega) and jet blast the emulsion of the wall. In the end you could try something like kitchen roll sheet soaked in your stuff and really try to press it into the pores of the bricks, hold it for say 5 seconds then dump the kitchen roll sheet, repeat 10,000 times. Could be that a light sand blasting could remove some residual staining without ruining the bricks. You could try the spot sandblasting kit used for de-rusting cars (from your hire shop).
Frank

 

[Jon Maine]

White spirits, turps, petrol, gunk, swarfega. What ever you do will cause some staining, I would go with the water miscible ones (gunk swarfega) and jet blast the emulsion of the wall. In the end you could try something like kitchen roll sheet soaked in your stuff and really try to press it into the pores of the bricks, hold it for say 5 seconds then dump the kitchen roll sheet, repeat 10,000 times. Could be that a light sand blasting could remove some residual staining without ruining the bricks. You could try the spot sandblasting kit used for de-rusting cars (from your hire shop).
Frank

You will get none of that with the Doff / Jos system it simply removes the stains. It is specialist kit though and may cost a bit to hire or get a contractor out to use.

 

[bobbucket]

My partner has spoken to Strippers of Sudbury and they have said brick acid will do nothing but they have stuff which will. Think we shall go the insurance route as not sure I want this idiot touching our house! I think the fact he painted half the roof of the neighbours on the other side without permission (another insurance claim there I think) should be a warning to us.

Thanks for that pointer to Strippers!

Edit: Sorry just seen other posts which followed. Internet seemed to point to Doff/ Jos so shall look at getting some quotes from legit companies and see what is advised. Knowing nothing about masonry, paint etc, I was finding it hard to work out if this was a major job or not. Seems it is!