# Forum Home Renovation Brickwork  Can you clean mortar off bricks to reuse them?

## YZ250

Hi All.  We are doing an extension to our house (1972 build) and we cant brick match to the original bricks (clarke reds).  We can get close with colour, but the texture of ours is different to whats available now. 
As part of the extension, we are pulling off a skin of bricks that contains approximately 1400 bricks.  The street facing part of the extension requires about 800 bricks.  Is it possible to clean the mortar off the old bricks and reuse them?  Is this going to be a ridiculously laborious job? 
Our preference is to keep the house with red bricks as that colour works with the existing window frames, pergola and deck (all brand new).  If we have to render the house our colour choices will be limited due to the colour of the window frames (which are a cream/off white) and we would need to repaint pergola and deck otherwise the whole house will be one light colour...so we are hoping to avoid that if possible. 
Brendan

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## phild01

You can hire brick cleaning machines.
I chose to use a rotary hammer and chisel bit.  It was a hard long job as the mortar was quite hard and did not break freely.
Could also try with a brick bolster.
Thing to do is rig up a holding jig so the brick doesn't move about as you strike at it.
I would also suggest acid cleaning the edges so the new work doesn't show the old stuff in the raking.

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## David.Elliott

Early on we scrounged and found hundreds and hundreds of the old wire cut solids that we cleaned for paving. Those weren't too bad as it was lime mortar...
As commented its a hard laborious job but eminently do-able...The worst I have had to do are the bricks with the three holes, they're a pain in the a@#$

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## YZ250

> Early on we scrounged and found hundreds and hundreds of the old wire cut solids that we cleaned for paving. Those weren't too bad as it was lime mortar...
> As commented its a hard laborious job but eminently do-able...The worst I have had to do are the bricks with the three holes, they're a pain in the a@#$

  I think these are the bricks with the 6 holes....Im not 100% sure though. 
Still...I think I may rue undertaking this job.  How clean do they have to be for a brickie to reuse them?  Do the holes need to be exposed again?

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## phild01

Mine had 3 holes and some had 7.  The mortar usually falls out of the holes and generally not a problem.  I found the ones with 7 holes (6 round, 1 long) actually broke a lot, but these were brittle over-fired bricks.
The cleaner they are, the happier will be the brick-layer.

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## Jon

I have cleaned bricks for a reno using a bolster and a scutch hammer.  Some times I could get clean the brick using the bolster with one hit, other times I would have to chip away with the scutch hammer.
I took my time and cleaned them in batches after work, allowing myself 1 beer for every bucket of mortar I cleaned off. 
Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

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## bricks

I've done plenty.
definately do-able, but will take some time.
the cost of cleaning will be less than buying new. 
i use a flat blade screwdriver, welders hammer, scotch hammer and a very sharp cold chisel. 
once you get a good rhythm going you'll be able to do a brick in 30 seconds.

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## johnc

Used air gun with chisel bit on a couple of thousand bricks for the same reason, colour match. An air gun was much faster than a bolster and fewer breakages, I didn't acid clean but the face of the bricks were fine anyway. Time consuming job, generally I find this sort of work faster with fewer losses if you avoid the beer smokos but worth the effort for the result. I have no desire to repeat the effort though. 
I have done plenty of lime mortar bricks and for those all you need is a brickies trowel, yours will depend on how strong the mortar mix was, by 1972 the bagged brew was usually measured by the shovel and not that accurate in some cases.

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## DuckCommander

I tried to reuse bricks for a project I was doing but the mortar was so strong it was ripping the bricks apart. To demo the old wall I had to get out the 18kg jack hammer to attack the mortar joints. My bricklayer said it was the strongest mortar he'd ever seen and joked it was 80MPa. At the end of the day I couldn't brick match but I scored 2,000 free bricks off Gumtree and had the wall rendered.
The Polish immigrant who built our place (his home) in the 50's built it so well it's been causing us some dramas with our reno. Not often said I'm sure.

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## Jemma

​Just about to start a house extension & so glad I read this as I've been wondering this myself!
Looks like I'll be chipping mortar off the old bricks then to hide our old laundry doorway  :Biggrin:

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## FOCharlie

By all means, the cleaner the bricks the happier the brickie will be, and absolutely tell the brickie _before_ you get them to quote.

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## Jemma

> By all means, the cleaner the bricks the happier the brickie will be, and absolutely tell the brickie _before_ you get them to quote.

  OOOOOH yes I have been telling them this when they have visited.
Now having to fight for finance as the bank lender stuffed up BIG TIME  :Frown:

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## METRIX

> I tried to reuse bricks for a project I was doing but the mortar was so strong it was ripping the bricks apart. To demo the old wall I had to get out the 18kg jack hammer to attack the mortar joints. My bricklayer said it was the strongest mortar he'd ever seen and joked it was 80MPa. At the end of the day I couldn't brick match but I scored 2,000 free bricks off Gumtree and had the wall rendered.
> The Polish immigrant who built our place (his home) in the 50's built it so well it's been causing us some dramas with our reno. Not often said I'm sure.

  Your Polish fella must have stopped by Sydney on his way to Brisbane, we did a red brick place once and the mortar was so hard the bricks would explode before the mortar would let go, 
We had to take down three walls which should have taken half a day, it ended up taking 2 and half days,  
There were doorways with 6 courses of bricks above, all done with just bricks no lintels, then we needed to cut into the slab for the new bathroom plumbing, this was the hardest concrete I have ever seen, the 16Kg demo hammer only scratched the surface, which normally eats 100mm slabs for breakfast, we had to hire a 32kg monster in the end. 
Everything we touched in the house was excessivly difficult, they glued down the chocolate glossy tiles with the same mortar they used for the brickwork, give me timberwork anyday, 
That was a job I never want to be repeated

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## SlowMick

YZ250 - i cleaned a bunch of bricks for a reno at my sisters place.  A mash hammer and a bolster took off the big stuff and i chipped off the rest with an old tomahawk.  Put on tunes with ear buds, ear muffs over the top, safety glasses and a big pair of cheapp ass gardening gloves from bunnings.  a hunk of sleeper is good to rest the brick on - it stops it sinking into the ground when you smash at it.  at mys sisters place i did it sitting down, at my place i used the garde bed withan 800mm wall and stacked up stuff to make it a good height to work at.  after a day of cleaning bricks you will have trouble closing your hand to make a fist.  some jobs you just gotta suck up and do... good luck.

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