Hardened White Paint On Brick
Has anyone had any experience removing hardened white paint from very red brick. Please advise the best removal technique. The paint has beed on the brick for about 12 years and has hardened like concrete. Thanks for anyone's help. 
Is brick interior or exterior, never hurts to ask your friendly neighborhood Home Depot. I have sand blasted brick before, just be aware you may need to repair some eroded joints.
Why not just leave it white, or pressure wash and repaint white or any other desired color. I'm doing exactly that on a project and I think it looks great.. Some fool owner had painted his red-brick house green, then covered the Brick with Green Aluminum Siding... eechh.
BL
Now that is grounds for divorce, painted a red brick and then covered it oh my god.
Exterior brick I am very nervous about sand blast cause it is wide open and will absorb water like crazy. I have used some chemicals on occasion. Like an oil paint remover, be careful, brick hates to be played with.unless you are Irish...
As one poster said you might want to try and turn it into a "used brick" finish by over painting parts, leaving the white in parts so it looks old and scuzy. It's all a matter of taste. Being involved with steel containers my taste is a little warped at this time. I'll check my old daily diaries and see what I did before.
Da best, Lucius
Sorry, I left out some details previously. The paint is on the exterior brick around the windows mainly. Someone attempted to paint the windows, apparently under the influence of who kn ows what. It is on the sides, top and sill and dripped on the brick below. Thanks for the previous suggestions; any more would be helpful. After it is done I'll tell everyone which idea we used and how well it worked. Thanks!
I am always cautious of painted brick because sometimes people try and disguise cracks in the brick by filling up the cracks and then painting the brick.
You might want to check the property for foundation problems.[ Edited by demosthenes on Date 11/25/2003 ]
I'm not saying it will or won't work, but I'm pretty sure that muriatic acid is commonly used to clean brick and masonry. If you are interested, please investigate it thoroughly, along with proper waste disposal procedures. I don't see anything wrong with sandblasting. Lufos, I don't really understand your comments about that. As far as I know, it's a pretty standard way to go. I'm pretty sure the road crews use it when repairing bridges and ovepass' all the time. If you decide to do it yourself, investigate which blasting material is best suited for the job, there are lots of different materials used for this, and some of them, like silica, can cause disease and may also be illegal to use in some areas. I don't know all the facts, it's just something to think about. Zach[ Edited by Zach on Date 11/25/2003 ]