Cleaning paint from concrete block walls & acid cleaning to the stone boundary walls.

Here we cleaned the paint off the walls on this flat complex in a select, residential area of Leeds.

The management firm originally contacted us for energy performance certificates and EWI system designs as they were looking into external insulated cladding under the governments now defunct ECO and green deal initiative.

The flats were built in the 1970’s with a good quality portland coloured concrete block.The mortar used was in excellent condition with no signs of wear.

Years later the flats property management company decided it would be a good idea to paint the exterior walls to smarten it up. Magnolia coloured Johnsons masonry paint was applied to the walls

That decision effectively enroled the flats owners into a continuous painting contract. With the nearby trees and the exposure to the elements, the paint finishes didn’t last long. Every five years or so this building needed another paint makeover to keep it looking good. 

With scaffold costs etc the re-painting of this building ran into many thousands. This was money that could be well spent elsewhere on the upkeep of this building. We arranged to undertake some test patch areas to which we carried out some work involving cleaning paint off the walls with paint stripper and steam power washing. A few paint strippers were tried before we found the perfect combination of paint remover and hot water jetting The concept of cleaning off the paint option, was helped with the paint cleaning trails as people could see the results and this was approved by most of the owners.

After careful consideration, regarding the potential energy savings and following our advice, external insulated cladding was not the prefered option. A decision was made to clean of the paint from the walls using paint strippers and hot water jetting.

The original late Victorian grit stone boundary walls were acid cleaned using a strong acid wash. We deliberately didn’t clean the stone too much as the owners agreed that a slight amount of soot and pollution left on the wall was more in keeping with a wall that’s over 110-year-old We also contracted a specialist firm  to clad some of the old garage walls in cedar wood