Removing bricks from side of house

Roughly where are you.

Is the house old or new - if it's old, scrape out the mortar with a bit of steel - if it's new, stitch drilling and very careful use of A. grinder or masonry saw.

Precautions to take, probably none needed if you take out a line of 3 + bricks over/under, and there're enough remaining at the ends of the line.

Cambridge

stitch drilling? As in drilling many holes close together in a line?

Have you considered digging around close to the footings of the house's external walls. In most places I've lived, this has often unearthed a useful number of matching bricks. I suppose the likelihood varies depending on the sloppiness of the original builders.

Use an SDS flat chisel to take out the mortar. Take 3 bricks from one course, 2 from the course above and 1 from the course above that - so as to get a triangular self-supporting hole.

So wouldn't it be better taking out the suggested bricks and replacing each course as you take them out? rather than all in one go.

It's a bit of a way, but Ridgeons in Newmarket may worth a ring. H. Butterfield, Luton used to have an excellent "brick library".

The mortar's probably too hard to scrape back, then.

That's it - if you drill them (say) 10mil apart, you can then use each hole again to drill at an angle, which will help:

\|X|X|X|/ |X|X|X| if you see what I mean. /|X|X|X|\

Any hard clouting is likely to fragment your brick! The first one is much more time-consuming than the next & subsequent!

As well as digging around the garden - have a look under your floors (if poss). Suspended wooden floors will most likely have joist supported on brick dwarf walls - easier to get some bricks out of, or knowing how messy builders can be you might find some 'spare'.

Phil.

Try Ridgeons for matching, or the yard at A505/A11 junction..

Yup. Angle grinder (hire a big one) will also make mincemeat of MOST of a horizontal course of mortar, then drill, and use a cold chisel for last bits.

Wash bricks in bucket of brick avoid after cleaning off the major gunk.

Ridgeons in Cambridge is closer..

... and wait for the mortar to harden, because otherwise there wouldn't be much point (unless you particularly wanted to put bricks in the way to make it more challenging to remove the others).

Went home last night all set to try this out - and my neighbour who I'd been chatting to about this knocks on the door, having just remembered that he's got about a hundred old bricks in the garden after he had a new window put in a few years back. They cleaned up well too :)

Good job he remembered then, and not two hours later!

Ben

Ain't you the lucky one .?...lol

Stuart

Once more - in english ?

P.

Aciiid 8:)

Brick a void ...Part of a training course for apprentice ( what are they .?) bricklayers . Stuart