Brick removal question

[Barony]

We are in the process of doing a remodel this summer and have a brick problem/question. Currently, three sides of the house are brick. After the remodel, we will only have two, the front and one of the sides. We are going to have to reuse the brick from the side we are moving the wall from and put on the front because they no longer make the style we have. Has anyone out there had experience with this type of project? The house is 23' wide and we need enough to do a 10'x10' section. I'm assuming that I need to score the grout line with a masonry blade and then carefully chisel. I'm also concerned that this brick is going to be really brittle and we are going to get a lot of breakage. I plan on renting a wet saw to clean them up when we are done. Thanks in advance.

[SFC]

It really depends on the type of brick & mortar used as to how many u can save. Work one course at a time all the way across. If brick are breaking saw the bed joint and work a chisel back and forth on the bed joint. Save all broken 1/2 brick or longer u may find a spot where u need them. Maybe post a pic. of your brick, might find someone with some, check out brickyards,bring a sample with might find some laying around.

[CFRay]

A photo here would really help. For a 10x10 wall area you will need 700 cleaned up brick ( normal modular size, but brick sizes vary all over the place ) That may be a big task ahead of you if in fact the existing brick are of a brittle variety like you suspect.

But some brick will come apart rather easily, red colors could be O.K., tan/grey colors can be softer and may not come apart well.

[Barony]

The top pic shows the wall that will be removed (the left side). The second pic shows the mortar lines. Thanks for any help.

[CFRay]

Those are a modular size brick. This size needs 6.75 per SqFt. I round up to 7, you'd need 700 for the 100 sqft area. If that wall is 23' I estimate that you've got 1250 brick in that wall that will be removed. I agree with your hunch. Those are a brittle sort of brick, pretty hard, crack easily and not always where you want them to. Based on the numbers you will need to salvage 56% of what you have. That's a very ambitious goal.

Scoring the mortar joint may not be enough to insure a high salvage rate. You may need to actually cut through the horizontal joint and then carefully chip/pry them up one at a time to achieve a 56% salvage rate.

I'd get hold of a brick salesman and see if they will look at your photos. Give it one more try to locate something that will work. Brock White in Eagan, Sioux Falls? Good Luck!

[Barony]

Thanks CFRay. They are an Ochs Brick out of Springfield. In a perfect world, I'd love to buy 2 pallets of them and be done with it. I tried the yard in Edina and they didn't have anything on hand. My brick guy told us they were going to be hard to find. My wife gets to handle this and has a lot more patience than I do. Any suggestions of other yards that I could try? I have the name of the brick at home.

[SFC]

I would try to salvage more than the 700. If brick are needed for corners or around the windows where the ends of the brick will show. make sure your extra carfull on the current bricks around the windows including half brick, the ends on these still are cement free. It should help with the sawing being the joints are roller raked. If u are not doing the brick yourself, get the bricklayer doing the job to give u a price for demo or a few pointers. You will need to use a chop saw with diamond blade and cut as ray said,grinder will not go deep enough. Call ochs and find out if they sell any of their line to independent yards.

[Barony]

We started the process tonight and out of about 30 brick, we salvaged 20. We started at the top and it got easier as we worked out way down. We busted a few when we were at the top. Just patient and slow. Also helped that we have a 4" brick chisel and a maul. I think we'll be OK. We plan to do 1 row at a time and work across. I took 3 off at 1 time and they popped like legos.

[hydro]

If you have an air compressor and an air chisel with a flat blade, you can make quick work of the job. A bonus is that due to a lower initial shock, the air chisel won't break as many brick as trying to pound them out by hand. You can even chip the leftover mortar off of the bricks once they are free without a lot of damage. I've used this method several times and it has worked well for me.

[Barony]

Another reason to buy a new tool. Looks like a box store sees my smiley face this weekend!