Painting a Brick House in Auckland: What to Know First

Quick answer: Painting a brick house works well in Auckland when the bricks are sound, dry and sealed first, and Resene publishes a full brickwork system for it. But painted brick is close to permanent, it joins your repaint cycle for good, and it changes how a brick veneer handles moisture.

Most people thinking about painting a brick house have already decided they don’t like the bricks. The orange-brown clinker on a 1970s brick-and-tile in Pakuranga, the patchy mismatch where an extension went on in the nineties, the salt stains creeping up from the base of a wall in Glendowie. Paint looks like the fix. Sometimes it is, but it’s the one exterior decision we talk people out of almost as often as we talk them into it.

The reason is simple. A brick wall isn’t a painted surface waiting for its first coat. It’s a porous masonry skin that was designed to get wet, drain and dry out on its own.

Put a film over it and you change how that happens. Do it with the right system, on the right wall, and a painted brick house can look sharp for years. Do it on a wall that’s already pulling in water, and the paint becomes the thing that shows you where the problem is.

The good news is that the rules aren’t guesswork. Resene publishes a step-by-step brickwork paint system and data sheets for every product in it. The Master Brick & Blocklayers of New Zealand, the industry body for bricklayers, publishes a best-practice guide that says what changes when a veneer gets painted. Put those two sources side by side and the decision gets a lot clearer.

This guide covers the decision first (should you paint your brick at all?), then what sits behind the bricks, then the actual paint systems, and finally how a brick repaint runs on an Auckland job. Pricing lives in our exterior cost guide and calculator, so this post sticks to the questions that decide whether you should spend the money in the first place.

Painting a Brick House: Should You Do It at All?

Start with the honest part. Once brick is painted, going back to bare brick isn’t a realistic option for most homes. The paint gets into the texture of the face and the pointing, and stripping it off a whole house is slow, messy and hard on the brick. So the question isn’t “will it look better next month?” It’s “am I happy to own a painted house for the rest of the time I live here?”

What you actually give up

Bare brick is close to maintenance-free as a finish. It weathers, it can grow a bit of moss on the shady side, and it might need a wash. Painted brick joins the same repaint cycle as your weatherboards, fascias and trim. On a typical Auckland exterior that means a full repaint somewhere in the 8 to 12 year range depending on exposure, with washing in between. If you were only ever going to paint the eaves, fascias and gables, painting the brick adds a large surface to every future job.

That shows up in the numbers. Our Auckland exterior cost guide puts a brick-and-tile repaint with only the trim, eaves, fascia and gables coated at $3,500 to $6,500, and painting the brickwork as well adds $2,000 to $5,000. That extra comes back every repaint cycle, not just once. You’ll find the full breakdown in our guide to how much it costs to paint a house exterior.

When painting brick makes good sense

There are plenty of houses where it’s the right call. The strongest cases are cosmetic problems that paint genuinely solves.

• Mismatched brick. An extension or garage conversion built with a different brick, or patched sections that never blended in.
• Dated clinker brick. Resene notes that many homes built in the 70s and early 80s used clinker bricks, a normal brick with a rough outward-facing profile. A lot of owners simply don’t like the look any more.
• A whole-house colour reset. When the roof, joinery and cladding are all changing, the brick can be the one element that won’t sit with the new scheme.
• Sound but stained brick. Old staining that has stopped spreading, on a wall that’s otherwise dry.

When we’d tell you not to

The flip side matters more. If the wall has an active moisture problem, paint won’t fix it and can make it harder to see. Fresh white efflorescence that keeps coming back, damp patches low on the wall, cracked or crumbling pointing, and staining under a leaking spouting joint are all signs water is moving through the brick. Resene’s X-200 data sheet is blunt about it: efflorescence is caused by water movement through the substrate, often via cracks, faulty flashings or cappings, and the source has to be found and eliminated before repainting.

We’d also be cautious on brick that’s in good condition and that you broadly like. If the only complaint is “it looks a bit plain”, a colour change on the trim, fascias and garage door often does more for the house than painting every masonry wall. That’s exactly what our free colour consultation is for, and it’s a cheaper experiment than paint you can’t take back.

🎨 Painting tip: Before you commit, stand across the street and cover the brick in a photo with a block of your chosen colour. If the house only looks right once the brick disappears, painting is worth a quote. If it looks fine with new trim colours alone, save your money.

So if the brick passes the “is it dry and sound?” test, the next question is what’s going on behind it. That’s where most painted brick problems actually start.

What Sits Behind a Brick Veneer, and Why Paint Changes It

Most Auckland brick houses built from the 1960s onwards aren’t solid brick. They’re a timber-framed house with a single skin of brick standing in front of it, separated by a cavity. That gap is the whole point of the design, and it’s the part people forget about when they reach for a roller.

Brick is a rain shield, not a waterproof wall

The Master Brick & Blocklayers of New Zealand Brick Veneer Best Practice Guide (January 2025) says it plainly: brick veneers are an excellent rain shield, but they’re not waterproof. In heavy, wind-driven rain some water gets through the brick and runs down the back face into the cavity. It then drains out through weepholes along the bottom course, while vents let moist air in the cavity swap for drier outside air.

The guide sets out the standard numbers for an unpainted veneer: a weephole of 75mm x 10mm every 800mm along the base, or 1,000mm² per linear metre of wall, with weepholes also needed across the heads of doors, windows and openings. Venting follows E2/AS1, either through vertical vents in the top course or second course down, or a 5mm gap around the top of the veneer.

What the brick industry says changes once it’s painted

Here’s the part no overseas “should I paint my brick house?” article will tell you, because it’s a New Zealand building detail. The same guide says that where a brick veneer is plastered or painted, it effectively becomes a waterproof system, so drainage and cavity airflow become less important but don’t disappear. The acceptable approach for weepholes becomes 50mm x 10mm at 1m centres, or 500mm² per linear metre, and vent holes are still required at the bottom of a painted veneer.

Two practical things follow from that for anyone painting brick in Auckland:

• The paint film is now doing the weathertightness work. That’s why the choice between a decorative acrylic and a weathertight membrane (covered in the next section) matters more on brick than on almost any other surface.
• Weepholes and vents must stay open. We mask them and cut in around them. A weephole painted shut or bridged by a lump of filler is a drainage point you’ve just switched off.

Important note: The guide notes that requirements for painted and plastered veneers can vary between councils. If you’re planning to render or plaster over brick, or the wall is part of consented work, check with Auckland Council or a Licensed Building Practitioner first. We paint; we don’t give Building Code advice.

Efflorescence: the white powder that’s telling you something

Efflorescence is the white, powdery and sometimes fluffy deposit you see on brick. The Master Brick & Blocklayers guide explains that it forms when excessive water enters a veneer containing soluble salts, and the salts are left on the face as the water dries out. It lists the usual sources: mortar components (particularly cement), soil or fill in contact with the wall, sea spray in coastal areas, and occasionally the bricks themselves.

That coastal line is worth reading twice if you live in Bucklands Beach, Half Moon Bay, Devonport or along the Hibiscus Coast. Salt-laden air means salt in the brick, and salt is what pushes paint off masonry from behind. Resene’s brickwork guidance notes that its Sureseal first coat also helps hold back salt staining on old brickwork, which is exactly why the sealer step isn’t optional on these homes.

The cleaning advice matters too. The guide says most efflorescence disappears over time, and its removal can be sped up by brushing with a stiff dry brush and collecting the salts with a dustpan or vacuum. Its most useful warning: rinsing brickwork with water just lets the salt soak back into the brick and reappear when it dries. Resene’s X-200 data sheet takes the same dry approach before painting, calling for loose deposits to be wire brushed off, the area allowed to dry, then spot primed with Resene Sureseal.

Our pre-paint checklist for brick

Before we quote the brickwork on any Auckland home, we walk the walls and check these. If any of them fail, the fix comes before the paint.

1. Efflorescence: is it old and static, or fresh and recurring?
2. Pointing: sound, or soft and crumbling when scratched?
3. Cracks: hairline, up to 2mm, or larger (larger cracks can be structural and need assessing by the right trade)?
4. Ground level: is soil, paving or a garden bed sitting up against the brick?
5. Spouting and downpipes: any leaking joints dumping water down the face?
6. Weepholes and vents: present, open, and not blocked by mortar or debris?
7. Moss, mould and lichen, especially on south-facing walls.

Once the wall passes, the next decision is the paint system itself. And there are two genuinely different routes.

The Right Paint System for Brick: What Resene Actually Specifies

The single biggest mistake with painted brick is treating it like a weatherboard. Brick is far more porous, the mortar joints are softer than the brick, and an acrylic topcoat on its own won’t bind a dusty surface. Resene’s own data sheet for Sonyx 101 lists “will not penetrate chalky and powdery surfaces” as a limitation. That’s why every brick system starts with preparation and a penetrating sealer, not paint.

Step one: clean, treat and seal

Resene’s published brickwork paint system runs in this order. Treat moss and mould with Resene Moss & Mould Killer, wash down with Resene Paint Prep and Housewash or waterblast at 2000 psi, apply Resene Sureseal, then fill voids.

The Moss & Mould Killer data sheet gives the detail that matters on a brick wall. It’s a hypochlorite-based solution, diluted from 1:4 for mild growth up to 1:1 for severe growth or lichen, left on the surface for 2 to 4 hours, then scrubbed and rinsed. Lichen can take several days to treat, and Resene says to remove the dead growth once it physically changes, typically after 1 to 2 weeks. That lead time is why a shady south wall covered in lichen can add days to a programme before any paint is opened.

Then comes the sealer. Resene says it generally recommends Resene Sureseal as a first coat on brick because of its high porosity, and because it binds up old, weak and friable pointing. The data sheet describes it as a solventborne, alkali-resistant penetrating sealer that bonds old, decaying surfaces and makes them suitable for painting, with coverage of up to 16 square metres per litre depending on porosity.

It also carries two limitations you should know about. Sureseal is a penetrating sealer and shouldn’t be counted as part of the film build of the coats that follow. And one coat can’t be expected to hold back gross staining, so the source of a stain has to be removed and more than one coat used.

🎨 Painting tip: New, unglazed brick is treated differently. Resene’s X-200 data sheet calls for Resene Concrete Primer thinned 10% with water on new unglazed bricks, while Sureseal is the seal coat for old, weathered masonry. If your house has both an original wall and a new extension, the right primer can differ from wall to wall.

Step two: decorative finish or weathertight membrane?

Resene’s brickwork system asks one question at this point: is waterproofing an issue? If not, it specifies two coats of Resene Sonyx 101, or two to three coats of Resene Lumbersider. If it is, it specifies two coats of Resene X-200.

What makes this interesting is that Resene goes a step further on the same page. It states that Resene X-200 is the ideal paint for bricks even if there are no waterproofing issues, because it fills small cracks and has a low gloss level that suits a brick home. Given what the brick industry says about a painted veneer becoming the waterproofing layer, that’s the recommendation we lean towards on most Auckland brick repaints.

Here’s how the three products compare, straight from their data sheets:

Why an X-200 quote uses so much more paint

This is where homeowners comparing quotes get confused, so here are the actual numbers. Two coats of Sonyx 101 at 12 square metres per litre uses about 0.17 litres per square metre. Two coats of X-200 at roughly 5 then 7.5 square metres per litre uses about 0.33 litres per square metre, close to double.

That’s deliberate. The X-200 data sheet specifies a 180-micron dry film for weathertightness, compared with 38 microns per coat for Sonyx 101. The thickness is the product. So when one quote for your brick walls lists twice the paint of another, ask which system each one is pricing. They may not be quoting the same job.

Put it on a real wall. Imagine a single-storey 1970s brick-and-tile in Glenfield with 100 square metres of brick to paint. Two coats of Sonyx 101 works out at roughly 17 litres of topcoat. Two coats of X-200 works out at roughly 33 litres. Both sit on top of the Sureseal seal coat, which at its best-case rate of 16 square metres per litre needs at least 6 litres, and more on thirsty old brick because the rate drops with porosity.

Those are theoretical data sheet figures on a smooth surface, and Resene notes the X-200 rates don’t apply to rough cast substrates, so a deep clinker brick will use more again.

There’s also a labour difference. Resene says brush or roller application is essential for at least the first coat of X-200 on block, and that weathertightness can only be assured when all voids are filled. If it’s sprayed, the first coat has to be back-rolled. On a rough clinker brick, working the product into every recess is slow, careful work, and it’s the step that decides whether the wall is actually sealed.

What about cracks and Dulux?

The X-200 data sheet sets out a clear crack schedule. For hairline cracks, spot prime with X-200 itself, which fills cracks up to 1mm because of its high film build. For cracks up to 2mm, apply Sureseal, then flush fill with Resene Brushable Crack Filler worked in along and across the crack. Anything larger than that gets a bedding compound, and a crack that size in a brick veneer should be looked at before anyone paints over it.

Resene isn’t the only option. Dulux points brick owners to Dulux Weathershield in its own guide to painting brick. We use both brands depending on the job, but because Resene publishes a complete brick-specific system with data sheets for every step, it’s the one we reference here.

Colour is a separate conversation, and a big one. If you’re weighing up the scheme itself, our guide on how to choose an exterior paint colour covers working with the roof and joinery you’re keeping. X-200 is also available in Resene CoolColour versions, so ask about it if you’re keen on a darker finish.

How We Run a Brick House Repaint in Auckland

Knowing the system is one thing. Running it on a real house, around Auckland weather and people still living inside, is where most painted brick jobs succeed or fail. Here’s how a brick repaint typically runs for us, start to finish.

Timing the job around the weather

Every paint in Resene’s brick system carries the same limitation. X-200, Sonyx 101 and Lumbersider must not be applied below 10°C, or when the temperature is likely to drop below 10°C during drying. Sureseal must not go onto wet or damp surfaces. Brick holds water for a long time after rain, especially on shaded south walls.

That puts real limits on an Auckland winter. A wall can look dry by lunchtime and still be carrying moisture in the brick, and a cold clear night can take the surface under 10°C before the coat has cured. We plan brick jobs for the warmer, drier part of the year where we can, and we don’t rush the seal coat onto brick that’s still damp from a wet week. Our guide to the best time to paint a house exterior goes into the seasonal detail.

🎨 Painting tip: If you want the house painted for a spring listing or a summer event, book the brick side of the job early. Prep, moss treatment and drying time on masonry can’t be compressed the way a weatherboard repaint sometimes can.

Washing without wrecking the pointing

Pressure is where brick and other masonry part ways. Resene’s Lumbersider and Sonyx 101 data sheets describe waterblasting at 3000 psi as the best preparation for weathered cementitious surfaces. But Resene’s brickwork system specifies 2000 psi for brick, and the X-200 data sheet warns against high waterblasting pressures because they can damage the substrate.

Old pointing is the weak link. Blast it too hard and you open up the very joints you’re about to seal, and you drive water deep into the brick right before you need it dry. So on brick we treat the growth first, wash at the lower pressure or with Resene Paint Prep and Housewash scrubbed on, rinse, and then give it proper drying time. That’s the approach behind the low-pressure wash we run over brickwork before any sealer goes on, and our comparison of house washing vs water blasting explains where each method fits.

The sequence on site

On a typical single-storey brick-and-tile in Howick, Botany or Forrest Hill, the order runs like this. Your project manager confirms the system with you before any product is opened, and they’re on site daily as the single point of contact.

1. Moss, mould and lichen treatment, with dwell time allowed.
2. Wash down and dry out, with efflorescence dry brushed rather than hosed.
3. Pointing and crack repairs, filled to the schedule for their size.
4. Masking of joinery, weepholes and vents.
5. Seal coat (Sureseal on old brick, Concrete Primer on new unglazed brick).
6. First coat brushed or rolled hard into the pointing and brick texture.
7. Second coat, then the trim, fascias and eaves that frame the brick.
8. Unmasking, a check that every weephole and vent is clear, and final inspection.

That last step matters to us. Our 97-point inspection checklist at completion is where we catch the things that are easy to miss on masonry: a thin patch in a deep mortar joint, a vent that’s been bridged, a drip line on the brick below a sill. It’s backed by our Picture Perfect guarantee, and it’s the reason we’d rather run the job slowly than quickly.

Looking after painted brick once we’ve gone

A painted brick wall needs a bit of attention between repaints, and most of it costs very little. Resene’s Paint Prep and Housewash data sheet describes it as a way to clean surfaces for painting or to use annually to keep a building looking fresh. It’s mixed at one part to three parts water, scrubbed on with a nylon broom or stiff brush, and rinsed off. A once-a-year wash on the south and shaded walls stops dirt and mould building up in the texture of the brick, where it’s much harder to shift later.

The other jobs are about keeping water off the wall. Keep garden beds, bark and paving from creeping up against the brick, fix a leaking spouting joint as soon as you spot a stain below it, and keep weepholes and vents clear of mulch and debris. If white powder starts showing through the paint, don’t just touch it up. That’s water finding its way through the wall again, so give us a call before it lifts the coating.

Check the walls after a big storm, too. Wind-driven rain is exactly what a brick veneer’s cavity is designed to handle, so a quick walk around after heavy weather to look for stains, blocked weepholes or water pooling at the base is the cheapest maintenance there is.

The alternative: render over the brick

Some owners want the brick gone altogether rather than painted. Resene notes that it’s popular to plaster over bricks with a Rockcote system, either for a monolithic look or to keep some of the brick pattern showing through, with Resene AquaShield as a topcoat. On clinker brick, Resene says the rough profile can be chipped off and the wall plastered for a monolithic finish, but that it isn’t a project for the home handyperson.

That’s a plastering and cladding-system job rather than a repaint, and it comes with its own specification. If that’s the direction you’re leaning, start the conversation with the system supplier and, where consent or weathertightness is involved, Auckland Council or a Licensed Building Practitioner. We’re happy to talk it through at a free consultation and tell you honestly whether painting or rendering suits your house better.

Most brick homes also have plenty around the brick that needs doing. Barge boards, fascias, eaves and window surrounds on a 1970s brick-and-tile are usually the parts that have weathered hardest. That’s the bread and butter of the brick-and-tile repaints we take on across Auckland, whether or not the brick itself gets painted. North Shore owners can reach our North Shore and Albany team directly, and East Auckland homes are covered by our Howick and East Tamaki team.

Painting Your Brick House: The Short Version

Painted brick can look excellent, and on the right Auckland house it fixes a problem nothing else will. But it’s a long-term commitment to maintenance, it turns the paint into your veneer’s weather layer, and it only works on brick that’s dry and sound underneath. Get the wall checked, pick a system built for masonry, keep the weepholes and vents open, and give the brick time to dry. Skip any of those and the paint will tell you about it.

If you’re on the fence, that’s the best time to talk to us. We’ll look at the brick, tell you whether it’s a good candidate, and give you an honest price for both options: painting the brick, or leaving it and refreshing everything around it. Call us on 0800 199 888 or book online.

➡ Book a free colour consultation with Superior Painters
➡ See our before and after painting transformations
➡ See how our exterior painting works on Auckland brick homes

WRITTEN BY SUPERIOR PAINTERS

Superior Painters is Auckland’s trusted house painting and commercial painting specialist. We offer interior painting, exterior painting, roof painting, plastering, wood staining, and house washing — with a dedicated project manager for every job and a free colour consultation service. 100% NZ owned. Auckland-wide coverage.

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References

1. Resene — How to paint brickwork
2. Resene — Sureseal pigmented sealer, Data Sheet D42
3. Resene — X-200 acrylic weathertight membrane, Data Sheet D62
4. Resene — Sonyx 101 waterborne semi-gloss, Data Sheet D30
5. Resene — Lumbersider Low Sheen, Data Sheet D34
6. Resene — Moss & Mould Killer, Technical Data Sheet D80
7. Resene — Paint Prep and Housewash, Data Sheet D812
8. Master Brick & Blocklayers of New Zealand — Brick Veneer Best Practice Guide (January 2025)
9. Dulux NZ — How to paint brick