The external walls of my house (built 2007) are finished with a "chalk" like product. All houses in the estate are finished the same, none are painted. Now a lot of the houses, including my own have started to get Red streaks along the walls. It is making the houses look unkept. Is there something that can be put on these walls to clear this? I have also noticed this happening to other houses across the city (Galway)
Hi,
I don't want to scare you but it might be a good idea for you to get an expert to check out the problem as we had horrific problems many moons ago with the outside of our house and we wasted money trying out different things before we got an expert to look at it and then got it sorted.
All the houses in our estate have at one time or another suffered from what looked like green stains with mould effect. Most of them have only had this problem recently whereas we were one of the first to notice it.
We put a recommended coating on it which cost quite a lot at the time and were told that it would last a lifetime. When snow stuck to it it came away from the wall and we were back where we started.
We got a guy out from at that time the Institute of Industrial Research and Standards and when he looked at it through a magnifying glass he said it was a mould type growth that had taken place because the builder painted the house while the plaster was still wet.
The only way to overcome it was to put up scaffolding, remove the bad paint with a high pressure water cleaner and then wash the bare walls with a chemical to kill the growth.
We then started afresh and put on pebble dash which is still there now. It may have been an exaggeration but we were told at that time that if we did not get it back to basics the pebble dash may well have fallen off because the mould was so strong.
Your problem may well be something different but best to get it looked at by an expert.
A phone call to the Customer Service Depts. in some of the paint companies might guide you in the right direction.
Hope you get it sorted.