Merry Christmas to Me

I made my first purchase for the Box House today: A Silent Paint Remover, a.k.a Speedheater. If it's as good as the promo literature and reviews say it is, I'll be able to quickly and easily strip paint and varnish from my wood trim and doors--and with 22 or so wood doors, including the ones in the basement and the garage, it just may be worth the hefty price tag. Now if only Santa would bring me the nifty little scrapers that go with it...

The guy I bought the Silent Paint Remover from is restoring his own Victorian house in West Chicago. We went to his place to pick it up. When we walked into the living room, I was delighted to see that he had recently stripped off all the paint on the wood trim and all that needed to be done was to restain it. "You've been busy," I said, "this looks great."

And then I found out he had used good old-fashioned paint stripper to soften and remove the paint. He had spent about ten minutes with the Silent Paint Remover before deciding he didn't care for it, as it "didn't do as good a job." I hope that's because he wasn't using heavy duty scrappers, as recommended, and was using simple putty knives.

I guess if it doesn't work, I can always sell it on eBay.

Here are the tool specs:

• No chemicals
• No heat gun
• No shaving or sanding
• Tool does not create dust
• Very low energy consumption
• Efficient and labor saving
• Does not cause lead to be released in the form of plumbic gases from the paint when operated properly
• Easy cleanup
• Reduces the risk of painters' burnout
• IR tube life length - 5000 hours
• Gentle on wood
• Significantly lower risk of fire compared to a heat-gun
• Scraping tools stay sharp significantly longer with this tool
• Low setup cost, no blade changing, no clogging, and no vibrations
• Environmentally friendly
• Softens paint and putty simultaneously
• Paint immediately after paint removal
• Ideal for window restoration
• Ideal for removal of thick varnish on wooden boats
• Creates a dry and disposable waste
• Exterior and interior applications
• Tool has no moving parts and is easily maintained
• Tool heats the mass and not only the surface
• Removes moisture in the wood during the process
• Neutralizes mildew and fungus
• The paint resin is drawn out to the surface creating a porous substrate and a tooth for the primer to grip on to. Result: very long lasting painted surfaces

I'd be interested in hearing about other people's experiences with the Silent Paint Remover...did it meet your expectations? Has anyone tried using it on brick? A long-term project I have in mind is to strip the paint off the brick wall in an (unheated) enclosed back porch. It's currently an ugly steel-gray color.