Removing 30years Of Paint From Brick (Exterior of House)

[slow&rusty]

Guys - Any of you remove paint from the exterior brick of a house. I would like to restore the house to its natural red \ orange brick finish and remove 30+ years of (awful paint) without damaging the brick and mortar..so that rules out harsh chemicals, power washing or sand blasting.

I did a search on Google and came up with a few ideas but still would love to hear some feedback from any of you from first hand experience.
Many thanks!
Yasin

[pavulon]

I'm no authority but nut-shell or possibly ?corncob? blasting seem like plausible, biodegradable options.

[Scuba Steve]

Maybe it's possible to blast with walnut shells? How sun damaged and weathered is the paint?

[Zeke]

You will need to be careful about lead in the old paint. You could end up responsible for a nasty environmental clean up.

Better read this before proceeding. At a $30,000+ fine per day plus clean up costs, you could lose it all.

[legion]

Some companies will do media blasting with powdered dry ice. You probably don't want to spend the money for creating such a setup yourself.

Another alternative is using a heat gun. This will work especially well if the paint is not adhering well anymore.

Even if the paint is peeling in sheets in some places, it is still probably well adhered in other placed, so a combination of methods will probably be your best bet.

Any method that is used will still leave paint chips all over the place. And don't be surprised to find out that the paint was put up to hide decaying mortar and you need tuck pointing when it is all done...