How to fill in porous external bricks before painting?

[jordan1savage]

 Hi there, I’ve started to paint the outside of my house brick but I’ve come to realise I’m not really chuffed about the texture of the brick which is quite porous. 

wanted to know if there are any economical  ways to fill in the holes and minimise the deepness of grout before I continue painting more (I’ve just got a 15L of the taubmans endure exterior that I’ve been using with a spray gun)

any recommendations would be appreciated! 

[MitchellMc]

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @jordan1savage. It's terrific to have you join us, and many thanks for your question about filling bricks and mortar lines.

I am unaware of any products that would be suitable for filling the surface of the bricks or the mortar lines. If there were, I'd suspect filling and levelling the mortar lines would be an extremely tedious and time-consuming process. There's really not enough depth there for any product to soundly bind to the existing bricks and mortar, and my concern is that you could do all the filling and painting only to have the filler fall out down the track. Perhaps considering rendering the bricks would be a more viable solution.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Mitchell
 

[jordan1savage]

Cheers Mitchell for the reply,

darn thought that may be the case, wasn’t certain whether the dulux texture range could help, even just the primer of it. Not prepared to render as that will be an absolute mission for myself

[MitchellMc]

I was thinking the same about the texture range, @jordan1savage. They might help fill some of the holes in the bricks, but then you'll have a textured roughish finish. So, if you prefer a slightly rough finish over the porous surface, they could be the go. I'm just not entirely sure whether it will fill those holes proficiently.

Mitchell