[wellsj1310]

Hello Everyone,
I'm new to this site (homeowner in Michigan) and hoping to get some guidance. We had a couple exterior doors replaced and due to some frame differences, there are now ugly lines of caulk left over - see pics. Any suggestions on how I could clean this up or make sharper lines?

I've heard about heat gun, scraping and cleaning but I don't think this would even make it look that much better.

Paint?

 

[RH]

That’s a tough one.

Scraping or wire brushing will usually leave evidence on the bricks.
There may be a way to remove the caulk chemically but that too could affect the brick or leave enough unsightly residue to not really be much of an improvement. I will leave that for others to suggest any possible methods and products for that type of removal.

I think if I were facing this, I would at least consider trying some properly sized window trim big enough to cover those lines. Painted the same as the windows, it may not be visible. I also thought about painting the brick on those sides (matching the actual red of the brick) but those grout lines would pose an issue if doing that.

 

[wellsj1310]

Thanks for the tip and kind of glad I wasn't missing anything obvious. I thought about using painters tape and run it along the old grout line and prime/painting the gap in between. At least it would then be a uniform line. I like the idea of trim but I am not sure how I would affix it to the door casing since it's so uneven. Maybe I'll take a look at the hardware store to try and picture some use of the trim.

 

[Woodco]

if its still soft at all you might get lucky and have it pull up... I suppose youve already tried that though.

 

[Workaholic]

I have chisled off rock hard caulk off of brick with a 5 in 1 before with pretty good success, but that was in between wood replacement.

They do sell caulk removal products like Dap Caulk B Gone and goo gone has a product as well. Before commiting to using anything I'd test it on the brick in an inconspicuous spot somewhere else on the house.

Beyond working it in the muscle or chemical manners above sometimes you just have to live with past sins and eyesores. If you do work it off, I'd recaulk with clear because I'm not a fan of white caulk on brick.

 

[Gwarel]

The new caulk job is as bad as the old one. Clear caulk to brick, always. At this point maybe remove as much as possible and paint the brick white to the corner?

 

[Diamond Cut]

Hello Everyone,
I'm new to this site (homeowner in Michigan) and hoping to get some guidance. We had a couple exterior doors replaced and due to some frame differences, there are now ugly lines of caulk left over - see pics. Any suggestions on how I could clean this up or make sharper lines?

I've heard about heat gun, scraping and cleaning but I don't think this would even make it look that much better.

Paint? View attachment 113972 View attachment 113973

Scrape the caulk off with new 5-in-1, some heavy duty wire brushes. The metal will transfer onto the brick but washes right off with a wet rag. Wrap the wet rag over the 5-in-1 and scrap the metal off the brick once you removed all the caulk from that area. Try not to remove too much of the brick because this looks like older brick and it's textured so it may show if you damage the brick too much. But any uneven spots from your scraping will darken and even out with time. I recently painted an exterior house where I had this very same issue. I removed all the old caulk and caulked a new perfectly straight line and it looks better than it did when they built the house. You can't even tell the brick was scraped at all.

 

[RH]

This was a tough one so I just let it ride a bit. But now that there have been some decent responses -

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