Using White Vinegar And Bleach To Clean Exterior Brick

I want to lime wash my house, because I don’t like the yellowish brick, and I don’t want the maintenance of paint. Since I love white, it’s the logical solution.

The brick around the house is actually pretty clean, with rain and sun in Texas keeping it bleached out pretty well. There is some rust areas I need to address, but that’s not as daunting as the chimney, which has some stains on it. Lime wash needs clean brick to adhere to, I need to make sure there isn’t sap, mold, fungus, mildew or soot stains on it. I’m not sure at this point exactly what the discoloration is, but I need to get it as clean as I can, or the lime wash may not adhere.

After doing a lot of online research, I purchased some tools. An extendable 8′ handle for the brush head. The brush head is hard plastic bristles–not wire, which can damage masonry. I got rubber gloves, bleach, and vinegar. I had a bucket already.

Here’s a fun fact: I’m afraid of heights–or more specifically I get dizzy when I start to get too far off the ground, and this makes me afraid of losing my balance and falling from way up high off a sloped roof onto a concrete patio below. We’ll see how it goes. Last time I got on the roof, I couldn’t stand up, and needed help to get down. But if I want the house lime washed, I need to get over it. So…?

I’m wearing rubber gloves and glasses, for protection. I’ve got both bleach and white vinegar–neither of which would be no fun to get in my eyes. I purchased the bleach and vinegar because there were two masonry cleaning recipes online that appealed to me. One was general cleaning with vinegar. The other was for organic growth–mold and mildew–and included bleach. I don’t know if I will use/need both. If I don’t get good results with one, I can try the other. If neither works, I’ll go buy a cleaner specifically for brick cleaning and try that. But these stains are not the worse stains ever.

Here is what the chimney looked like to start out. Some of it is just tree shadow. But you can see especially near the top and the sides that it’s also got a lot of grime on it in some spots.

First I applied the vinegar and water solution. It was a 1-to-1 mix.  I used half a bottle of vinegar with the same amount of water, and here it is applied to the front. It’s a little hard to see it, because of the tree shadows, but it really amazed me how much it took off. I did decided to do the bleach as well, though, after.

I also was surprised how much of the masonry came off in my bucket–considering I wasn’t expecting any. So just a heads up to not be shocked if you see something like this in the bucket after you empty it.

The bleach solution (1 cup bleach to 1 gallon water) is supposed to be applied after the brick dries out. I applied it to the front, and then did the vinegar on the back and sides. I did all right on the roof, and it got easier the longer I was up there. Here is the front bleached, and the sides done with vinegar:

I’m going back up tomorrow to do the bleach on the sides and back. You can still see where it was stained, but the intensity is a lot less. I don’t know if it shows in the photos. Since it took time to do the work, the light changed when the sun moved. Also the brick is a little wet after the process. So the image on the right is the “after”. To me it just looks more uniform. The stains are still there, but they look more like stains now rather than dirt.

I’m going to say this is working well enough for the lime wash work. I’ll find out if it’s not. But I do think it’s exposing the actual masonry surface, although it’s still stained. My goal wasn’t super clean, just getting off the grime so the lime wash will stick.

I may also post an image once it’s all done and dried, if it looks much different. And, obviously, I’ll post about the lime wash once I get to that.

Take care!

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