Removing pebble dashing - is it possible?

[figcake]

One wall of my lovely Victorian house is pebble dashed. I long to see the exposed brickwork underneath though I am not sure how to go about trying to achieve this without making a complete mess of it and ending up with a multi-textured multi-coloured disaster.

I have put up with it until now as it is more dull yellow than stark Weetabix type of coating. Are there companies around who are able to scan walls in order to advise you whether removal would be worthwhile?

You can have it sandblasted (I think). Our neighbours had it done. Didn't see them do it (hence the fact I think it was sandblasted), but it was messy and all the surrounding cars were covered with dust. it did look lovely though.

It can be chipped off but there's a very high likelihood that the pointing will need completely redoing afterwards and, worse, the brickwork itself might be damaged which can't be repaired. If you really hate it, you could see if you can have a smooth render put over the top. You might find that just painting it a different colour improves it.

Oh that's great - I assume that would not be a DIY job though - does your neighbour have a front garden (just wondering in terms of asking people to move their cars etc)

Sometimes the bricks underneath can be damaged s you might have to render after removing the pebbles

Are you sure there is actually lovely brickwork underneath? People generally don't render walls for fun, but to cover up tatty brickwork. If the rendering was done when it was originally built then the brickwork may not be uniform. The back wall of my house is rendered and the the bricks beneath were laid on edge; I guess because they have slightly larger area that way and it would therefore use fewer bricks.

thanks lala - I did consider painting it though I have seen a few houses like that along our road and it has started looking like Balamory! I was hoping that their were companies specialising in this field.

I'd be a bit surprised if you can sandblast pebbledash - blasting usually removes a thin layer of paint or varnish or rust. If you think about it, blasting stones and concrete into small fragments that then fly across a street could be a bit dangerous...

V small front gardens, enough for wheelie/ recycling bins and a bike (about 4 feet). Regarding dust, it's nothing the rain won't wash off.

We had tyrolean render (similiar to pebble dashing) on our 15th century thatched cottage . We removed it (chipped it off) because of issues with damp and replaced it with a lime render. The concrete sticks to the face of the bricks and rips away the face (spalling). Whilst there were patches that were OK, if the brick is a bit crumbly then the damage can be too bad to ever make it look ok without re rendering.

I think that the people across the road from us have had 'something' done to their house as the brickwork is a bright, light brown colour rather than blackened, old bricks like all the other Victorian houses. However, I have never spoken to them so I am not about to start IYKWIM.

You wall may be pebble dashed and rendered as a form of water proofing and the bricks underneath may be porous so there could be a lot more work involved than you think. There are modern waterproofing methods available nowadays that would remedy this problem if any , also hidden brickwork was never generally built to the standard of exposed brickwork so it could look very tatty when finished. As for sand blasting, this practice is illegal and has been for some time, shoot blasting may be carried out but special permission and insurance is needed due to the damage it will cause to other people property and cars, shoot blasting will only remove the small particals left after the bulk of the render has been removed.Des your rendered wall receive the bulk of the rain?

yes, probably - pretty sure that the pebble dashing was added in the 20c though

Our last house was pebble dashed (plus its two neighbours) in a London terraced street. I don't know when the Great Age of Pebble Dash was, but I suspect it was done to cover bomb damage repairs post-war or something like that. It was a fairly tidy job, we had to put up with it.

ALL BRICKS ARE POROUS THAT'S THE POINT OF BRICKS (the advice 'ooh yeah the bricks are porous so we have to seal them is a usual con of people who remove render to get more cash. Bricks are porous, and they dry out with the air.

Bleach works well on the pebbledashing in my loo. HTH xxx

Not all bricks are porous and waterproofing a wall is hardly a con. Engineering brick which is widely used in house building is not porous at all. The wall in question was probably rendered for a reason and the most common reason is that the same wall gets the bulk of the rain which in turn causes damp so thats probably why the wall was rendered but modern chemicals have now taken away the need for rendering bare brick as they can do the same job much better without loosing the look of the finished wall.

Ours is/was pebble-dashed, quite "modern" with some lovely patterns done in different colours [yuk]. Hated it. We got it looked at, and when the builder tried to chip it off it was taking chunks of brick with it, so he rendered over it instead.

He put a large brick type pattern on, and we painted it.

It looked so flipping fantastic that next door had it done to match!

sorry that b**ks about bengineering brick etc is rubbish bricks should not be waterproofed or coated or any of that crap - they need to allow wayer vapour through to be effective

Do bricks need to allow water vapour through? I thought they were meant to keep it out . Doesn't it cause lots of problems when damp gets behind the face of the bricks or into the pointing?

NOOOO!!! THAT IS WHY BRICKS ARE POROUS SO THAT DAMPNESS DRIES OUT. Do you think we are all living in giant waterproof plastic bags that drip with sweat on the inside???

oh and:

1. pebble-dashing was also a roman technique
2. no your house probably isn't roman... :)

(by the way you will be told all sorts of different stories by 'brick sealant' companies... who will use the porosity of the brick to soak up their pointless chemicals!!!!

'engineering bricks that are waterproof' sheesh...

I have been googling this and there are specialist cos that will carry out the work for around £5k per wall

I think DH should be able to manage a chisel and drill job as he is pretty good at it. There is a bit of dampness at the bottom of the wall so it may help with the removal.

PS House is 1870s built so pre-dates the acceptable era for pebbledashing (1890-1930s apparently). I know that our road was badly affected by the Blitz - infact there was a detached house next to ours which 'disappeared' altogether and many others along the road. I hope that the pebble dashing is not covering any gruesome bomb damage

can you paint over pebble dashing do you know? My house is pebbledashed, I hate it, it was done as a fashionable thing in the 80s, not by me I hasten to add. I suppose I should be glad it avoided stone cladding that was also popular at the time just reminds me of Jack and Veras!