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Official Pit Home Improvement/DIY thread

Deaconblue said:
The important part of painting brick, like painting anything else, is the prep work. The brick needs to be clean and dry before painting. Also make sure the mortar joints are tight before painting. If not, or if some is missing, caulk before painting to fill in the holes. If the mortar is sound, a power washer may help a lot in the prep. Make sure you get the efflorescence (white powdery stuff) off the surface. Latex primer, maybe two coats. Exterior latex paint. As noted above, unpainted brick will soak up a lot of paint.

As for DIY vs hire someone, it really depends on your appetite for work in doing proper prep, and the difficulty in reaching all of the surface you want to paint.
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Interesting! We're looking at a few homes and that is one of the improvements that I'm thinking about doing. I even know what color I want to do it in. My husband thinks he can DIY but it will require a lot of time. I'd rather just hire someone to do it.

I have seen exterior brick painted on a few occasions, while the workers are painting. It didn't look like a difficulty process but what I always see is the annual touch ups.

My next step is to find a painter and get the job quoted out to see if it is something that I actually want to do.
 
Why anybody would paint a brick house is beyond me. When we were househunting in the fall I was amazed at how many painted brick houses there were, it just doesn't look good to me, idk
 
smallbigtall said:
Why anybody would paint a brick house is beyond me. When we were househunting in the fall I was amazed at how many painted brick houses there were, it just doesn't look good to me, idk
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It is personal preference. I do like a regular brick home, but I just love the character that painting the home can add. With its black shutters and columns, it will be gorgeous painted the color I'm thinking.
 
I don't think 2 story, painted brick homes look good. However, there's this small, one story ranch that was just painted an off white around here that I like.

Eta: jk. Just googled some pictures. I think it looks good if the right color. Don't do bright white.
 
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Another reason some people paint older brick homes is following repairs and patches to the brickwork. It is difficult, approaching impossible, to match old brick and old mortar joints with new bricks and mortar. Solution? Make the patches with good quality bricks and mortar, then paint everything. Can't tell its been patched. Others like the look of painted brick. Can be good, can be bad, depending on how the colors all fit together.
 
Deaconblue said:
Another reason some people paint older brick homes is following repairs and patches to the brickwork. It is difficult, approaching impossible, to match old brick and old mortar joints with new bricks and mortar. Solution? Make the patches with good quality bricks and mortar, then paint everything. Can't tell its been patched. Others like the look of painted brick. Can be good, can be bad, depending on how the colors all fit together.
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You hit on a big thing. One of the homes that we are looking at the back doesn't match the front. At the end of the day, painting both of these homes will add major curb appeal to the home. The color I want is one that I have seen on other homes in the area and that I know will go great with black shutters.
 
Both the neighborhood where I grew up and my current neighborhood have houses with brick painted white. That seems to be a frequently used color.
 
I'm a big fan of brick painted off white with black shutters. Clean, classy, and timeless IMO.
 
Looking at pictures, I really like a light beige painted brick w/ black trim.
 
Our bedroom is significantly warmer than our living room at night and in the morning. I don't see where there are any vents that can be closed but haven't looked that closely.

The BR is right next to the air handler. Any thoughts?
 
The bedroom is smaller and has two humans one door to the main living area and a sliding glass door to the patio.
 
Trying to get the bedroom cooler. I woke up sweating with only a sheet and got to the living room and had to out on a LS t-shirt.
 
This may seem stupid but what the hey. Do you sleep with the bedroom door closed? If the air can't circulate to the thermostat then the AC can't come on and cool you down. May consider a ceiling fan.
 
We open the windows in the master bedroom, and put a window fan in our bathroom (blowing out) to suck the outside air into the master and out of the bathroom, circulating it through the whole upstairs. You can set it to low/high and it has a thermostat built in so when the temperature falls, it shuts off.

http://www.target.com/p/holmes-window-fan-with-digital-thermostat/-/A-10299424

Not all that helpful during hot nights, but it's perfect during the spring/fall where the nightly lows are in the 60s.
 
We already have a ceiling fan. Seems silly I have to sleep with my door open, but I'll give that a shot tonight.
 
We have to have everything open and set up fans for a cross breeze because of the same heat issue, but we also have no A/C.

I'd still check to make sure your AC isn't being cut off or the duct work isn't crimped somewhere. My parents had this issue, too - turns out a hard turn in the ductwork basically cut them off.
 
why does it seem silly that a closed off room without open communication to the thermostat stays warm? If the hot air from your room can't trigger the AC to come on, then you're sorta out of luck.
 
Some additional info would be useful to help you sort this out.

1. Is the problem during peak winter heating season, peak summer cooling season, spring/fall when you are using little heat or A/C or all the time? Which way is your system set (heating or A/C) when the problem is noticeable?
2. How many air vents supply heated or cooled air into the bedroom? You noted earlier there was no way to close the vents. How difficult would it be to swap your existing registers for ones with closable vanes?
3. Are there any return air vents to take air from the B/R back to the heater A/C?
4. Does your air handler have a damper that can be moved to change the air flow to different parts of the house? If not, might want to get one installed as a more permanent solution. However, this may cost, and is not a DIY project.
5. Another engineering fix for a problem like this might be adding a return up high on the bedroom wall. This would remove some of the hotter air from the room. If the return duct runs beside the main supply, this may not be too hard to do.


Answers to the parts of question 1 will help pin down whether the issue is too much heat coming into the room or too little cooling reaching it.
 
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