soft wash painted brick · West Point, GA

soft wash painted brick in West Point

In West Point, this comes up on lake houses, revived downtown brick, and the commercial buildings of a working town. River humidity and tree cover mark roofs, and drives pick up clay from the county roads. Older brick in town often has softer mortar than a new subdivision wall. The method gets gentler, not louder.

Lake houses empty out midweek. A property check and a lit porch matter more than another summer wash.

Brick holds moisture, which is why the shaded elevation grows a green film and why painted brick mildews in the pores of the paint. A controlled sodium hypochlorite wash kills that film. Pressure high enough to “clean the mortar lines” is pressure high enough to cut the joints. We do not do that.

Painted brick is paint. If the paint is chalking or peeling, a wash reveals the peel. It does not cause fifty years of failure, and it also will not glue the paint back down. We would rather show you a test area than discover the whole wall is holding on by habit.

Efflorescence, the white salt crust, is not mildew and it is not a bleach problem. It is moisture moving through masonry. Washing the crust off without stopping the water is temporary. We will tell you if that is what you are looking at.

The full explanation, without the town attached, is the brick and mortar are not a driveway article. The town does not change the chemistry. It changes the houses, the shade, and the clay.

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