Hi! I have a brick wall that has old roofing tar on it. What is the
best way to remove it? I thought of heating it and scraping off and
then treating the remainder with some sort of chemicals. Will a
roofing torch and/or chemicals do the work? If so, what kind of
chemicals do I need? Any advice is appreciated!

On 30 Mar 2007 14:18:38 -0700, wrote:

Hi! I have a brick wall that has old roofing tar on it. What is the
best way to remove it? I thought of heating it and scraping off and
then treating the remainder with some sort of chemicals. Will a
roofing torch and/or chemicals do the work? If so, what kind of
chemicals do I need? Any advice is appreciated!

The short answer is, once you stain a brick, you'll never
get it back the way it was. You can probably get whatever's
stuck to it off, at least mostly, but it's still not going to
look like the rest of the wall. That said:

Remove as much as you can mechanically, without damaging the
surface of the brick. Before you start to use chemical solvents,
saturate the brick with as much water as it will take, to limit
how much solvent/stain wicks deeper into the brick.
I don't think fire is a good technique for cosmetic cleaning of
brick, but maybe....
Before you start using fire on the surface, dry the brick completely,
else it's likely to explode. (although, replacing the brick
will likely solve the stain problem....)

http://www.bia.org/html/faqs.html#General
--Goedjn

On Mar 30, 4:18 pm, wrote:
Hi! I have a brick wall that has old roofing tar on it. What is the
best way to remove it? I thought of heating it and scraping off and
then treating the remainder with some sort of chemicals. Will a
roofing torch and/or chemicals do the work? If so, what kind of
chemicals do I need? Any advice is appreciated!

I have used acetone in this situation but I don't reccommend it to
anyone else since it is quite dangerous. All skin must be covered.
Goggles for the eyes are a must. A respirator is also recommended.

Although not the most effective solvent, mineral spirits will dissolve tar,
and it is probably about the safest you could use. It's still flammable,
but has a relatively high flash point. Let it soak for awhile and use a
brass brush. You could enhance the solvancy by adding a little toluene (aka
toluol), but toluene is less benign. Make sure there is plenty of
ventilation and keep flames away.

Paint stripper will work too.

I once stripped a brick fireplace that had been painted. It's a matter of
lots and lots of applications and dilutions, and it never got completely
clean, but it turned out okay.


wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi! I have a brick wall that has old roofing tar on it. What is the
best way to remove it? I thought of heating it and scraping off and
then treating the remainder with some sort of chemicals. Will a
roofing torch and/or chemicals do the work? If so, what kind of
chemicals do I need? Any advice is appreciated!

On Fri, 30 Mar 2007 19:43:07 -0500, "Tom"
wrote:

Although not the most effective solvent, mineral spirits will dissolve tar,
and it is probably about the safest you could use. It's still flammable,
but has a relatively high flash point. Let it soak for awhile and use a
brass brush.

Not the OP. I used a steel brush to get something off of brick, and
though I got it off I guesss, the brick looks bad. Would the brass
brush have avoided this result.

It looks bad now but i'm hoping in 10 or 20 years it will look more
like it originally did. Any chance of that?



You could enhance the solvancy by adding a little toluene (aka
toluol), but toluene is less benign. Make sure there is plenty of
ventilation and keep flames away.

Paint stripper will work too.

I once stripped a brick fireplace that had been painted. It's a matter of
lots and lots of applications and dilutions, and it never got completely
clean, but it turned out okay.


wrote in message
roups.com...
Hi! I have a brick wall that has old roofing tar on it. What is the
best way to remove it? I thought of heating it and scraping off and
then treating the remainder with some sort of chemicals. Will a
roofing torch and/or chemicals do the work? If so, what kind of
chemicals do I need? Any advice is appreciated!

On Mar 30, 1:18 pm, wrote:
Hi! I have a brick wall that has old roofing tar on it. What is the
best way to remove it? I thought of heating it and scraping off and
then treating the remainder with some sort of chemicals. Will a
roofing torch and/or chemicals do the work? If so, what kind of
chemicals do I need? Any advice is appreciated!

Unfortunately all of the other suggestions will work for the surface
tar. Dissolving the tar will only make it seep deeper into the pores
of the brick. What you can do is if there is a small area (not a whole
house) use a spot sand blaster, its just a hand held unit that the
average home compressor will run and you can control how much tar and
brick you take off. The other solution if it is a large area is a
larger sand blaster. Sand blasting works well because usually the old
tar is somewhat hard and this is what you want NOT to SOFTEN IT the
brick will soak it up like a sponge and it will never come out. If you
have already softened the tar you might want to consider altering the
rest of the brick in a manor that it looks "used" for example painting
some of the other bricks and then wiping it off, rubbing some
dissolved tar on some of the bricks, adding some mortar mix to some of
them. Spreading these suggestions throughout the wall will look the
best. Good luck
http://www.palmisanoconcrete.com

I have used acetone in this situation but I don't reccommend it to
anyone else since it is quite dangerous. All skin must be covered.
Goggles for the eyes are a must. A respirator is also recommended.


Acetone is relatively harmless. (It's used in nail polish remover, for
example.) Unfortunately, it's not that useful. The human body produced
tiny amounts of acetone and the body can "handle" small amounts.

Benzene is THE solvent for "tar." But Benzene causes cancer. Benzene
seems harmless but isn't. An organic vapor mask is ESSENTIAL.

MEK might work. Skin protection is a good idea when using MEK. Ditto for
the organic vapor mask.

Although not the most effective solvent, mineral spirits will dissolve
tar,
and it is probably about the safest you could use.

If you are talking about real "tar" then mineral spirits will not do much.
For real "tar" you need Benzene. Benzene causes CANCER!

If you are talking about asphalt then mineral spirits MIGHT work. What
does work is gasoline. Gasoline is a fire hazard, of course but it
evaporates quickly and the hazard goes away.

wrote:
Hi! I have a brick wall that has old roofing tar on it. What is the
best way to remove it? I thought of heating it and scraping off and
then treating the remainder with some sort of chemicals. Will a
roofing torch and/or chemicals do the work? If so, what kind of
chemicals do I need? Any advice is appreciated!

It would help to know how much tar we are talking about .. a few drips
or smeared all over the wall. Mineral spirits works well for cleaning
light amounts from floors and skin, but don't know about brick. I would
start by trying to pick off as much as possible when it is cold and
likely to stay pretty solid. After that, a stiff brush and ms if you
can avoid it running down and staining other parts of the house.

replying to Goedjn, JG wrote:
prose wrote:

The short answer is, once you stain a brick, you'll never
get it back the way it was. You can probably get whatever's
stuck to it off, at least mostly, but it's still not going to
look like the rest of the wall. That said:
Remove as much as you can mechanically, without damaging the
surface of the brick. Before you start to use chemical solvents,
saturate the brick with as much water as it will take, to limit
how much solvent/stain wicks deeper into the brick.
I don't think fire is a good technique for cosmetic cleaning of
brick, but maybe....
Before you start using fire on the surface, dry the brick completely,
else it's likely to explode. (although, replacing the brick
will likely solve the stain problem....)
http://www.bia.org/html/faqs.html#General
--Goedjn


I have found that the best way is to wait until winter then use a hammer.
This causes the tar to shatter and break away from the brick. I have not
tried to clean the stains yet.

--

Dissolving the tar with mineral spirits (or any other solvent is a bad idea).

Brick is porous, and the tar laden mineral spirits will be wicked into the brick causing a permanent stain you'll never get out.

I agree with the advice to chip it off the brick in winter if your winter are cold enough to freeze the tar so that it's brittle.

Then use a sandblaster in summer to remove any tar that didn't come off in winter.

If it's roofing "tar", then it's asphalt.

Asphalt is produced from refining crude oil. When you've heated the crude oil to drive everything that can be boiled off out of the oil, then what's left in the pot is called "asphalt". Tar is traditionally made from coal and is a byproduct of making coke for the production of iron. Pitch is a byproduct of the incomplete burning of wood to make charcoal. Nowadays, everyone uses asphalt instead.