New door opening in cavity wall

[Tim Lamb]

I suspect this has been covered before.....

I need to break though the remaining block work wall, separating what was an integral garage from a ground floor bedroom.

The bedroom is fully furnished and in use:-(

My original thought was to use a carbide tipped hand driven masonry saw but these are 1995 era blocks. Hammer and bolster?

Angle grinder, even at low speed, has been considered and rejected:-)

I can build a temporary plastic cage on the bedroom side to contain most of the dust and arrange a vacuum cleaner extract.

Any tips, experience?

regards

[Dave Liquorice]

Oh dear...

I'd be seriosuly tempted to go the hand route of some sort, an angle grinder would have to be a big one (10" hired?) to cut through blocks and the dust... Are these structural blocks for just light weight internal "thermalite" ones, the latter will cut well enough with a cheap hard point saw.

Note what you say about how often a vac would need un clogging. I'm cleaning out the builders dust ATM with the cheapo earlex and that gets a blocked filter with noticeable reduction in suck after just the dust from the swept and small piles of small rubble from just one room. And it's still shoving a fine dust into the air, if I had another hose or two for it I'd vent outside...

Essential and tape sealed to the wall. Once you have the opening, throughly clean up and then leave the vac running for an hour to filter the air. That will make a difference but the room will still need a good dusting afterwards. Covering everything with *clean* dustsheets or lightweight plastic might defray the wrath of SWMBO'd.

[DIYer]

I've just done exactly the same thing myself. Used a 20mm SDS bit to perforate the line of the opening, drilling all the wall through the block and at centres as close as humanly possible, followed by a 2" bolster chisel with lump hammer and some grunt to break through.

The first block out is the toughest, and dust is kept to a minimum especially if you lift blocks out once they're loose, rather than letting them drop to the floor. Regular dosing with a fine mist spray on the exposed mortar bed joints helps as well.

[Dave Liquorice]

everything

Oh come on, you know full well that one microscopic grain of dust and it will be *all* your fault, not hers for wanting the work done in the first place. I get it all the time my normal answer is "you can't make an omlette without breaking eggs".

[Tim Lamb]

In message , fred writes

There is an apocryphal tale of the Army catering sergeant seen putting broken egg shells into the breakfast scrambled egg.

It's to make the men think we use real eggs was his excuse!

Is it about time for a *joke of the week* thread? I don't get out enough to know any:-)

regards

[grimly4]

crying out for a doorway in it.

[grimly4]

I wonder if one of those ash-catcher containers that go in line from the fireplace to the vacuum would work with concrete dust.