Stripping the porch

Thanks to our water main upgrade, we’re now able to run the sprinklers out the back, as well as two water blasters without any noticeable drop in pressure. Why two water blasters? you might ask, well you see our house is very yellow. Very yellow indeed.

We’ve spent the last month stripping the paint from the bricks on the front porch. The house managed to make it through to about 2002 before some genius thought they’d “improve” things by adding a splash of color. I don’t know how long it took them to paint it, but it’s taken us about 60 hours and several hundred dollars to remove. We’re not quite done yet, but wanted to get some pictures up to show our progress.

The paint is latex, over red clay brick. It’s a bad combination as the paint is actually absorbed into the brick. I initially started using “Dads” brush on paint stripper. Unfortunately it’s a bit runny and evaporated straight off. I hit the internet and, after looking at several sites of people in the same position, found a product called “Peel away”. It goes on thick, like cookie dough, and is then covered with a layer of paper to stop it from drying out. It takes about 24-48 hours to do its thing (although we left some bits on a lot longer), but it does work.

The pictures below have us about 80% done. You can see some of the paper on the right hand pillar.







The thing that amazes me is how long it takes to strip off. Laying it up was pretty quick, but we’ve probably got about 50 hours between us in stripping it off. Every time I tell myself “just one more day”, I finish the day with “just one more day” worth of work.

We got the last of the paint off the brick today and moved onto the concrete slabs on top of the brick. We were able to use the remainder of the “Dads” stripper on this, as well as a couple of cans of Jasco.

Here’s AK painting the stripper on. Looks like I got her good side :)


One side nearly done.


Take care not to breath the fumes, if you use this stuff. Strange things happen.


We got the other side stripped, but ran out of light before we could finish the upper pillar supports. Looks like one more days work and we’ll be done.


Big, big thankyou’s to John R and Tim S for the use of their water blasters. We’re nearly done. Honest.