How to dismantle brickwork without damaging the brick?

How to disassemble brickwork yourself, preserving the material as much as possible?

When deciding how to dismantle brickwork, you need to thoroughly prepare for the work. If demolition or partial dismantling of a building on a country estate is planned, the requirements for the process are to ensure the safety of others. If there are upcoming measures to redevelop the apartment, work begins only after approval from the relevant authorities. Often the masonry is dismantled independently, without damaging the bricks, in order to reuse the building material. Despite the fact that dismantling a brick wall is not an easy process, any beginner who is familiar with the features of the technology can handle the job.

Preparing to dismantle walls

To dismantle a brick wall you will need: a hammer drill, a drill, a jigsaw and an electric screwdriver.

Dismantling work should be carried out with the obligatory use of protective equipment. When dismantling walls, fine dust is generated, which can cause serious harm to health, so it is necessary to use special clothing and safety glasses. It is also advisable to wear a respirator.

In order to dismantle a brick wall, you can resort to the help of professionals or do it yourself.

The cost of dismantling brick walls will depend on some features of the building and its size.

If you turn to professionals for such work, during the demolition process they will use power tools and various devices for manually removing the binder from bricks.

Before dismantling begins, preparation must be made depending on the specific working conditions. For example, sometimes it is necessary to dismantle only one wall in the house, that is, a partition.

It should be noted that bricks are quite heavy and if they fall on the floor, its coating may be damaged. In this case, it is necessary to create a protective layer on the floor (old blankets and unnecessary rags will do). Furniture must be removed from the premises.

In order to quickly dismantle a brick wall, the jackhammer should be aimed at the joints of the bricks.

Electrical wiring must be removed in advance. To do this, turn off the power completely, otherwise there is a risk that during operation the wires will be damaged by brick fragments, tools will land on a bare wire, a short circuit will occur, or people will be injured.

It is useful to spray the wall with water from time to time; it produces more dirt, but wet dust does not get inside when you breathe, and less harm is done to your health. Workers carrying out dismantling should definitely wear safety glasses.

First, from a brick building intended for dismantling, it is necessary to completely remove the window and door structures and remove the plaster. Dismantling begins with knocking out several elements at the joints of the ceiling and partition. The strength of the connection of bricks can be broken by strong blows, for which a sledgehammer is most often used. You shouldn’t immediately dismantle the walls in large pieces; it’s better to separate several bricks if possible.

What you need to know before demolishing walls

The first thing to consider before carrying out work is that the structure may be load-bearing. You can check whether this is so, guided by the thickness of the partition. If this value is 380 mm or higher, then dismantling the brick wall is impossible due to the fact that it takes on the load-bearing load.

But even if dismantling is permitted, it is important to exclude the presence of communications in the masonry. The old wires, however, may not be needed, but the apartment should still be de-energized before dismantling begins. It is necessary to free up as much free space as possible in the work area so that there is somewhere to put construction waste, but it has an impressive weight and can put a significant load on the floor. The mass of broken bricks must be distributed over the available area so that the load is uniform.

In most cases, breaking a wall is carried out using one’s own physical strength. The only question is what type of tool is used for this.

Manual disassembly

Walls one or half a brick thick, built on a weak (cement-lime) mortar, are broken by the simplest and most primitive method - manually.

Mechanized disassembly

It is much easier to disassemble a wall using mechanical and electrical tools. They allow you to get the job done faster and less labor-intensive. They are used to destroy durable brickwork with a thickness of one and a half bricks.

Pneumatic hammers

A jackhammer uses a long steel pike to cut into the seams and separate the bricks from each other. The disadvantage is that the use of this type of tool is associated with strong vibration of the walls and dust formation. The method is good, but it is not suitable for dismantling old buildings, when it is important not to damage the integrity of the structure. In such situations, a mixed approach is used: where possible, an air hammer is used, and where care must be taken, a pick and chisel.

Hydraulic shears

This is a new and effective type of tool that looks like large wire cutters. With its help, walls are broken without physical effort on the part of a person: everything is done by compressed air. The edge of the wall is grabbed by the wedges of the shears, and crushing occurs by the force of compression. The only problem is that the new product is not available in all areas.

Footnote . For one-time use of a tool , it is better to rent at a construction center . Purchasing expensive , infrequently used equipment is not financially justified .

Rope traction method

Using winches, walls of a large total length are dismantled. All work is carried out in 4 stages, including preparing the walls for felling.

Wall felling sequence:

Sections of the walls are allocated in such a way that the collapse of one part does not entail the collapse of another;
The building is being cut: through the markings, through grooves are laid in the brick;
Immediately before felling a certain section, the reinforcement connecting it to the rest of the structure is cut off;
A hole is punched in the center of the wall, the winch cable is fixed, and the force of tension causes a collapse.

The felling is carried out from the extreme areas to the middle. Since large planes collapse at once, they are pulled to free space and broken up using available methods: sledgehammers, chippers.

Power tools

Electric drills and hammer drills are used as auxiliary tools if you need to remove a small area of a certain configuration on the wall. The contours of the future opening are drawn, and then, using the outline, through holes are made using a power tool. The interval between holes is about 5 cm, but this depends on the strength of the brick and mortar used for the masonry: the stronger the wall, the more often holes are drilled.

Once the wall is perforated, use a hammer and chisel to knock out the remaining gaps. In this way, you can carefully make an opening for the front door in a main wall without damaging other surfaces.

Partition demolition technology

During the renovation process, partitions may need to be demolished.

Dismantling brick partitions can be done as follows:

A perforator device for dismantling a wall.

The surface should be knocked out in parts. To do this, it is necessary to determine the size and weight of the knocked out part. It will be very difficult to lift more than 10 kg of brick. Next, you need to mark with a marker, and then cut the wall along the lines. This kind of dismantling of partitions is almost silent, but dusty.
Dismantling brick walls using the chiselling method. You will need a hammer drill. You need to be very careful when working. Adjacent walls may be damaged. The method is fast but noisy.
The partitions can be dismantled by drilling small holes with a drill. To do this, the wall is divided into small sections by lines and holes are drilled along them. They need to be located very close to each other. The drilled pieces are knocked out with a hammer.

Methods for disassembling without damaging the brick

In addition to manual dismantling of brick buildings, they use the demolition method. It does not preserve the integrity of the building material, but removes the wall in blocks. This will destroy the structure much faster, but after this method the brick will no longer have to be used. Can only be used by specialists in this field. To do this, special equipment (bulldozer, crane) is used. It is important to remember that any demolition of a wall requires the necessary permission so as not to damage the entire building. Such a document is provided by the Bureau of Technical Inventory (BTI).

Walls

During renovation work, it sometimes becomes necessary to demolish a wall. Particular difficulties arise if this wall is made of brick. In order to carry out the work yourself without damaging adjacent walls, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the technology of dismantling brick walls. Let's look at how to dismantle a wall in a brick house below.

Preparation for dismantling brick walls

The order of work during the dismantling of brick walls depends directly on the type of dismantling. Full or partial dismantling of the walls is possible. Also, the method of dismantling the wall should be used in accordance with the further use of the brick. If the brick has not lost its performance characteristics, then it is quite possible to use it again for certain purposes. In this case, it is necessary to choose a gentle dismantling method.

If there is no need for further use of bricks, it is enough to break the wall with a special tool without worrying about its safety. Dismantling brickwork is a rather complex process that requires patience, physical effort and accuracy from its performer.

In the process of preparing for work, you should not forget about your own safety. Be sure to use protective equipment such as a respirator, protective clothing, goggles and gloves.

Dismantling a brick wall yourself will help you save money on hiring specialists. The beginning of installation work involves preparing the premises for specific working conditions. In some cases, partial dismantling of a wall or partition is required.

Please note that brick is a fairly heavy material that can destroy the floor covering if it falls, so be sure to protect it in advance. Furniture and other items are first removed from the premises. Also, you should remove electrical wires from the wall that is being demolished in advance. Also, during dismantling work, the electricity is turned off. Otherwise, the brick may touch the wires and cause a short circuit.

In order to get rid of excessive dust in the room, you should treat the wall with water. If there are window or door structures on a wall that can be demolished, we recommend removing them in advance. Also, care should be taken to remove finishes, putty and plaster.

Prices for dismantling brickwork in the estimate

Prices for dismantling brick walls or prices in estimates for dismantling brick partitions are most often used when drawing up estimates in Form 4, local resource estimates or local estimates for repair or reconstruction work. Therefore, most often the price for dismantling brick walls in the estimate can be selected either from collections of the regulatory framework for the repair and construction part, or from collection 46 for reconstruction. The same applies to the prices in the estimate for the dismantling of brick partitions.

Thus, the GESN46-04-001-04 standard, which is shown as an example in Figure 2, can be used as a price for the dismantling of brick walls. As you can see, table GESN46-04-001 can also be used when drawing up estimate forms for dismantling foundations of various types, as well as for dismantling small-block walls.

Figure 2. Price for dismantling brick walls

In addition, the price in the estimate for dismantling a brick wall can be applied using special coefficients for dismantling. However, this is possible if the GESN46-04-001-04 standard is not suitable for the technology of work as a price in the estimate for dismantling brickwork.

In addition to the price in the estimate for dismantling the brickwork of walls, the price in the estimate for dismantling the brick partition can also be applied. In this case, it is best to refer to the repair collection GESNr55. The specified collection under the code GESNr55-5-1 contains a price for the dismantling of brick partitions. This price in the estimate for the dismantling of brick partitions takes into account, in addition to the dismantling work itself, the price in the estimate for cleaning the brickwork, or rather, individual bricks suitable for further use. Also, this price in the estimate for the dismantling of partition bricks provides for storing the dismantled bricks in a specially designated area in stacks. However, it should be borne in mind that the price for carrying bricks manually as part of the work of the GESNr55-5-1 standard is not provided, at least for a greater distance than indicated in the technical part. Therefore, if necessary, this type of work should be considered a separate item.

Manual dismantling of walls

This method is used in cases where it is necessary to complete the work as carefully as possible, preserving the bricks for further construction. This can only be done manually using a crowbar, sledgehammer, hammer and chisel. However, manual labor can only be used to dismantle partitions whose thickness is no more than one brick. It is impossible to demolish capital and load-bearing walls using muscular force, since the enormous weight of the floor slab and the masonry itself presses on them.

Here's how to dismantle a brick wall using hand tools:

Tap the surface of the object with a hammer. This will reveal hidden voids in the dismantled wall. It is much easier to work in such places, and this is where disassembly should begin.
Insert the chisel into the first seam from the top. Land several powerful blows with the sledgehammer. Once the crack appears, continue along the top seam.
After the top row of stones is completely separated from the masonry, disassemble it. Carefully remove the bricks and place them aside so that they do not interfere with further work. If the stones are stuck, they will have to be sacrificed by knocking them out with a crowbar or sledgehammer.
In a similar way, knock out and remove 1-2 stones at a time. It’s not worth cutting down large fragments, even if you have the desire to sort it out and want to do it. If dropped, bricks may break or crack, losing their value.
Break the bottom row of stones. As a rule, they are embedded in the screed. To avoid destroying it, you should cut a groove along the wall. After this, you can safely remove the bricks.

The stones knocked out of the masonry are cleaned of any remaining mortar and stored for further use. They can be used to build a gazebo, garage, house or barbecue.

Dismantling instructions: how to carefully dismantle brickwork

When planning how to dismantle a brick wall, first remove the floor and ceiling plinths. Next, remove the coating - wallpaper, paint, plaster - to the base surface of the structure.

To preserve building materials for further use in the construction of other objects, bricks are dismantled as carefully and accurately as possible. However, this is only possible if a lime or cement mixture with a low concentration of binder was used during the construction of the wall. This structure is not difficult to dismantle using a regular set of chisels and hammer. If the material is laid on a stronger mortar, you will have to use an electric or pneumatic tool to dismantle the masonry. In this case, a significant part of the stones is deformed along with the building mixture.

How to optimize the work so that most of the brick remains intact and suitable for reuse:

using an electric drill, only the seams are destroyed, which allows you to then carefully knock out the stones and remove them;
To dismantle the masonry, wedges are driven in along the horizontal and vertical seams. After cracks appear, they begin to carefully knock out each stone, avoiding deformation of the corners.

To ensure that most of the brick remains intact and suitable for reuse, only the seams are destroyed using an electric drill.
In any case, dismantling a brick wall with a strong mortar will require a lot of effort.

Stages of dismantling a wall

Work begins by knocking out the top row of bricks at the junction of the partition and the ceiling. Insert a chisel into the first seam and strike with a hammer, destroying the joint. As cracks form in the mortar, they continue to move further, working horizontally.
Next, take out the bricks of the top row, which are completely separated from the masonry. Those specimens that are stuck are knocked out with a hammer or crowbar. The stones are then lowered down through specially built chutes. Whole elements are immediately stored separately, and broken elements are collected in another pile. If necessary, immediately clear the stones from the mortar using the sharp end of a pick.
In a similar way, all subsequent rows are dismantled, knocking out and removing 2-3 stones. It is worth remembering that simultaneous demolition of several rows of masonry is not allowed in order to avoid deformation of a large number of elements.
The bottom row of masonry is usually embedded in a screed. To remove bricks without deforming the floor structure, you should cut a groove along the wall line and carefully knock out the remaining stones.

Are special permits required?

Some activities that involve reconstruction require the issuance of permits. This list includes:

association of several apartments;
joining the attic;
arrangement of an opening for a door block in a load-bearing wall;
connection of a room and a loggia;
kitchen niche equipment.

The housing inspection also legalizes other changes if the main structures are violated. Before carrying out dismantling work, it is necessary to collect all documents and issue a permit, and obtain the consent of residents living in the neighborhood.

When obtaining permission to dismantle walls, certain factors are taken into account:

the number of floors in the building and the floor where your apartment is located;
year of construction of the building;
building material used for the construction of internal and external walls and ceilings;
quality condition of the foundation;
type of wall planned for disassembly.

Dismantling of load-bearing walls is rarely performed, because as a result, the load on the base of the building increases and the foundation is subject to destructive processes.