It’s time for the living room! *excited hand-clap*

I’ve googled, but don’t actually fancy chemical route or ruining myself trying to wire brush the whole lot.

I’ve seen drill attachments mentioned here, but worried they could damage bricks (dust is absolutely fine 🙂 )

What did you do? (I.e not just read!)

Ta.

Total area ( doing all three sides of outer & repointing)

Inside sooty bit

Haven’t done it, but have you thought about using brick slips? You’re more likely to end up with a ‘characterful’ look. Whereas the bricks you currently will have are unlikely to be any sort of facing brick.

Shot blasting would be a good option

http://www.screwfix.com/p/bosch-flap-discs-115mm-40-grit/26022?kpid=26022&cm_mmc=Google-_-Product%20Listing%20Ads-_-Sales%20Tracking-_-sales%20tracking%20url&gclid=CJWc0_yB4s4CFWsq0wodSCQAMQ

About 2-5 ish for that area

NB

1. You wont be able to see a **** thing
2. you wont be able to breathe
3. the dust will get everywhere even if you try to seal the room
It will take you about 2-5 days- roughly a day per wall- personally i would rake out before sanding

I only did the chimney breasts in mine

I would shot blast tbh if mess and money were no object
Chemical stuff do nothing at all IME

One of these bits of kit for the weekend may do it.
Brick Cleaning kit
With an industrial vac…
Some masks
Some help and loads of dust in your snot for a few days after.

Flap disc on a grinder. I tried a wire brush disc but it was too aggressive on the soft old bricks. It Worked quickly and took off just the right amount

P.s make sure you have a good mask and glasses!

That brick cleaner hire looks like it might be too aggressive. OP looks like he has some soft old bricks that have been lime rendered.

I’ve done a lot of looking into this as we have a wonderful but soot blackened gritstone chimney breast in need of cleaning.
I’ve looked into chemicals… I decided it was a non starter
Needle scalers…. Way too harsh and likely to spoil the appearance of the stone.
Sand blasting… Looks like the only reasonable method.

To rent the kit or pay someone to do the job was going to be big bucks, so literally 10 mins ago I ordered a £100 compressor and a £22 sand blaster off eBay, which I plan to re sell wen the job is done. I’ll make a tent out of 3×2 and polythene to try to keep the dust to a minimum (not a problem you have)
I only have a small area to clean so you might find this kit insufficient.

Oh and whilst I’m at it, I’ll strip the paint off the old steel Rocky Mountain Blizzard frame I have languishing in the loft!

Hope this helps
Floss

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/390609322539

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/122024465402

Hard to tell from the photos but they look like a relatively modern brick, ( too uniform to be handmade) so should be fairly tough.
But whatever they are, we would start with the easy stuff and try hot water, detergent, and a stiff brush. If they’re just covered in lime wash and soot then it should work reasonably well and save on the dust.

Granted some of it looks a bit industrial but the rotary scrubbers have different options on the disk so probably one to suit. At 30m sq per hour, it will be a quick option.
I would be careful with sand on your frame, I think they usually use crushed walnut shells on bike frames. At least that what they told me when they I had mine done.

I’ve seen some really messed up brickwork from rotary cleaning. If you can drain or contain the water, I’d try a pressure washer, just with high pressure water.

the problem with soot in the fire opening is it becomes ingrained into the brick and might be almost impossible to clean out 100%
you could always plaster or render the inside of the recess

As above, if you can contain it then try high pressure water first.

I did our sooty fireplace with water and loads of salt to make a paste. Worked on with a cloth. Worked suprisingly well. Maybe two goes at that then 1 or two goes of soapy water. No good for paint though

Edit – it got all the soot off and revealed a lovely pattern where some bricks had changed colour with the heat. No dust or shitty chemicals either

Get a price to blast clean it. It could be cheaper than you think.
If you were local to me I would charge 150 -200 . Couple of hours work.
You can waste quite a lot mucking about trying to make a good job and make a mess of it. You will have to look at every day until you move !!!

Or ruining myself trying to wire brush the whole lot.
I’ve seen drill attachments mentioned here, but worried they could damage bricks (dust is absolutely fine )

I lasted about 30 mins with the wire brush drill attachment, complete waste of time.

I did the brickwork in the attic when we converted it. The bricks were covered in a mix of patchy concrete, mortar and 100 odd years of thick black attic filth. Went at it with scrapers and chisels for the concrete bits then A LOT of hard brushing with handheld wire brushes.

We wore out several wire brushes, numerous face masks, a vacuum cleaner, and several sets of knuckles!

Once we got to an acceptable level of “rustic chic but not minging” I sealed them with an exterior brick (optional step: I wanted to keep dust levels down in the finished room).

Hard to get a decent photo as the attic is full of stuff at the mo but…

Shot/sand blast but by someone who knows what they’re doing. Pressure will need to be turned way down so as not to destroy those bricks. This and others were done on a job last year. He knew his stuff as these had about 456 coats of old gloss/scumballing on them.

Soda blasting is probably a kinder option.

A £100 compressor is going to struggle to keep up with any blasting kit though. I had two 2.5hp compressors with 24L tanks feeding into an 80 Litre tank running a stand alone blaster with hose and I got about 30 seconds between recharges but that was at 90psi blasting.

A hand held one might be okay but slow work.

I used a scotchbrite wheel on a drill to do a few fireplaces, it worked really well without being too aggressive.

To rent the kit or pay someone to do the job was going to be big bucks, so literally 10 mins ago I ordered a £100 compressor and a £22 sand blaster off eBay

The rental kit was big bucks because a 100 quid compressor and a 22 quid gun it is now. It will be decent kit that would work.

I have a 150l 3hp compressor connected in tandem to a 24litre 2.5 HP compressor and I still don’t get very long with the gun…..and it’s shite so I don’t bother with it any more 🙂

Cheers all (jet washing though?!)

First pass with normal scrubbing brush and soapy hot water seems to be doing the job, so far…

Not looking forward to getting this mortar out though. 🙂

Actually, I’ve got another question now 🙂

Is a normal pointing mix ok for inside the fireplace for a convector stove? Rather than some fireproof mix.

Ta 🙂