the only way I know is to chisel it off..or carefully use hammer drill. talk about some work. a few years ago I helped a friend's son's young husband get started on a wall in a 100+ year old church. sore hands, and viberating arms for days. too much labor for me...I'll leave that to the young folks. you could look at it this way..folks pay a lot for old brick and if it chips the brick you could call it character. hopefully someone will have a better option. best of luck.

You can try a chemical paint remover with a power washer, but NO SANDBLASTING. It will rip the face off the brick. The question of whether it will work is largely dependent on how porous the original brick was at the time it was painted and whether a sealer was applied before hand (unlikely). Try it what do you have to loose?

Trial and error. I have black clay that can be scrubbed off with a brush and clear water. 50 miles away the red clay can stain some paints. At the risk of damaging mortor,pressure washing would be my fist attempt for cleaning brick.

Hi -- thanks for responding. Unfortunately, we don't think that the block has been filled. When we peer into the vent, located in the block and shown in the second photo, the cylinder block holes are unfilled. Would you recommend mixing concrete to fill the holes or use another material? Once that's figured out, then we would flash it, cap it, and then side it. (Or at least that's the plan.) Our other thought would be to keep the brick, but paint it. The problem with that is the existing aluminum cap that they used is hideous. Would it be better to remove that and have a mason brick the top to cap it? We've spent the last couple of years going up on weekends to renovate the inside and are still perplexed by the exterior. We want to give it some curb appeal.