Brick A New / Painting Brick Questions

[Charles1981]

We painted one of our fireplaces that does not and will not have a wood stove or be used with brick anew system. Overall we are very happy with the results.

Next up however is the brick wall with the free standing wood stove in front. There is about 120sq feet of brick to cover. The kit from Brick anew cost about 250$ and we used 4 pints of the brick primer at 30$ a pop. We will probably need 5-6 pints to do the next fireplace brick wall (these are all huge brick surrounds and we have 3 of them....

I have emailed brick anew regarding MDS sheets but not sure I will receive them. I did call them but did not get information as to what the brick primer is other than..not a paint and that it seals into the brick and is not a paint and will not bubble or chip due to high heat. That being said I asked them what temperature ect it is rate for and they did not have that information (at least the sales rep didn't). So now I am hoping I can get MDS sheets at least from them but not sure if this will work.

They did tell me over the phone they have people that apply their product within 5-6 inches of wood stoves and have had no complaints... but I am not big into anecdotal information about products directly from sales departments.

I THINK the brick primer is actually block filler 2x primer which is a concrete brick sealer. But i do not know this for sure. I can get a gallon of this product for 30$....instead of 150$ from Brick anew. We would still use their paints/glaze to go over the primer but we just have to far a large square footage to cover to spend 400$ on primer for the other two fireplaces. We only used 1/2 bottles of their 3 color setup and glaze to finish the single fireplace.

Does anyone else know if concrete block filler/primer is high heat acceptable? The rear end of the wood stove would be approximately 18-20 inches from the brick wall.

Thanks for any information / advice.

 

[webby3650]

18-20 inches is greater clearance than most all current stoves require from combustibles. Meaning, if that was a drywall surface with paint the stoves heat would not damage the wall. Unless your stove is requiring 18" of clearance to the rear I'd say you're fine.

 

[Charles1981]

Well My concern is the primer. I saw a masonry primer from Behr at home depot but called behr and they said if the wall gets hot to touch you can't use that primer. That was latex.

After further research I THINK and am assuming the brick anew primer is acrylic but do not know for sure. The concrete block filler I found is acrylic and low VOC (just like the brick anew primer).

I am not so much concerned with making clearance as I am with picking a the correct product in exchange for the brick anew primer which is 240$ a gallon, vs the concrete block filler primer at 40$ a gallon. I am not interested in overpaying for pints of a product if it is really just a repackaged acrylic concrete filler. I will pay for their color scheme because I don't trust myself to put together 3 colors and glaze that produce a clean finished product.

 

[webby3650]

My point is that your stove had been tested safe at a certain distance from a combustible wall. Wether it's gas soaked wrags, painted wall, or foam. It's safe.. If you are within the recommended clearances I don't see any product failing due to heat.

 

[bholler]

Ask the product manufacturers but really if it is outside of the clearance requirements i doubt it eould be an issue. But there is no way for us to know what products will work with their proprietary system.

 

[jetsam]

Uuuuuhhhhh.

That company has a marketing department with chutzpah, I will give them that.

It looks like $200 gets you 2 quarts of latex paint, a few pints of glazes with assorted tints, and about $5 worth of applicators. And a DVD that says "roll on the paint, use the brush to get the bits the roller missed, roll out the brush marks, and then sponge the glazes over it after it dries".

They don't have spec sheets available so I could be wrong, but it sure looks that way from their web site.

 

[Charles1981]

Hrmm I missed that statement in regards to the product when searching.

We are happy with the kit we ordered. We would never have attempted this project in the first place and the end product is nice. I will post some before after photos once we get the painters tape off.

I don't mind paying for the colors at all. But the brick eats up so much primer I do not want to pay 250$ (edit actually 140$) a gallon versus 40$ a gallon for the block filler.

I think I will purchase the block filler and then test a small area with their color scheme and see how we like the results. Their 3 colors and single glaze produce a very nice effect.

So while we knew off the bat it was very over priced paint it at least gave us a preset color and video of how to apply it. But I don' think I would buy anymore of their primer unless we just can't achieve a similar look because the price is just out of this world.

EDIT and it looks like I was wrong. They come in quarts... so a gallon is 140$. Which makes it a little less costly than I was estimating at first.

 

[Woody5506]

All paints are different, but typically a high heat paint is meant to withstand hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit and sometimes well into the 1000s. Your brick isn't going to get anywhere near those temps. So, there is that plus side. It's still hard to tell without a MDS sheet or a paint rep that's easy to communicate with.

I work in an industrial paint shop and we spray all sorts of paints. I know first hand how much of a rip off paint can be. We've had jobs called for paints well into the $1000 range per kit.

 

[Charles1981]

 

[Charles1981]

Anyway, Before and after shots. Despite the price we are super excited about the end product. But ran out of primer to finish the bottom portion.

 

[webby3650]

My inlaws used a similar product, if not the same thing around their VC encore. It's got huge clearance requirements and there's been no problems.

We painted ours with plain old paint and primer, it got really hot around my Lopi Freedom. The paint never had any issues.

 

[webby3650]

Here's my finished product. After the paint, I decided to reface the entire fireplace! I can't leave stuff alone, lol!

 

[mcdougy]

View attachment 196327 Here's my finished product. After the paint, I decided to reface the entire fireplace! I can't leave stuff alone, lol!

Nice....my wife would really like the abundance of pink stones in your veneer stone

 

[webby3650]

Nice....my wife would really like the abundance of pink stones in your veneer stone

It's not really pink, more of a buff in person.

 

[Woody5506]

Both of those look great but I don't know if I could ever paint brick. I'd hate to have it not look exactly as I wanted. Once it's painted, you're kinda stuck with it. You can paint over it, but the more coats of paint over it the worse it will start to look.

Unless of course you wanted to bring in a sandblaster to strip it...

 

[cableman]

Im thinking of watering down reg paint, brushing on and wiping off for a white washed look. Neighbor and her mom do some nice work