Skip to content

Household math

  • Home

OK, so it's strange math :). The top-left image (taken before we bought the place; I didn't actually take any "before" pictures) is the wall of brick that surrounded the fireplace in our home. Add to that a Dasco Pro Mason Chisel with Hand Guard and a Stanley Three-Pound Drilling Hammer, and the end result is a pile of brick in the driveway ... oh yea, you need to add a fair bit of sweat, and a wheelbarrow will greatly ease the task of hauling out the brick.

This was the first time I'd ever tried to demolish a brick wall. Overall, it was actually a bit easier than I expected, other than the sheer number of bricks involved. I can highly recommend the chisel I used; it made short work of the mortar between the bricks, and the hand guard definitely works well--I didn't hit my hand once, despite swinging the three-pound hammer probably well over 1,000 times to break out all the bricks. If you're going to break down a brick wall, I definitely recommend a chisel with the hand guard.

(I took out the wall so that we could use the space on the right of the fireplace for a built-in bookshelf and storage cabinet, and to install a gas fireplace in place of the current wood-burning insert. Those projects, however, will be handed off to a professional--I can destroy, but I'm not so good at the build-it-up part!)

1 thought on “Household math”

  1. I started the same kind of project on a 100 year old house once. A year later, I ended up with and entire second floor where the attic had been. You never know what your going to find when you start tearing into an older home.

Comments are closed.