The front of my house has brick veneer wainscoting on the bottom 1/3 of it. It's ugly brick, and it's in the way of my continuous insulation retrofit project due to how it projects 4" beyond the stucco on the rest of the exterior, so I need to demolish it. The bricks are actual bricks stacked in a running bond with mortar, not thin bricks adhered to a stucco/mortar scratch coat or anything.
How should I go about demolishing this brick wainscoting without wrecking the fiberboard sheathing and 2×4 framing behind it? I suppose the fiberboard is disposable, as I could just replace it with even more foam insulation, but naturally the 2×4 framing needs to remain intact.
Best Answer
From the top down, one brick at a time.
All your chisels strikes should impact towards the lower and next brick, laterally or directly downwards. Place the chisel point in the mortar bed, drive it under the brick, and voilà. If the top row abuts something, these bricks may be difficult, but the rest will come right out once two adjacent sides are free.
This is how I'd attack most brick walls anyway, that I couldn't just push over; using my chipping hammer. Let this be your excuse to buy a rotatory chipping hammer (that toggles to just impact) or have fun with your 5 pound sledge and a cold chisel. (zoro.com)
-Swinging hammers sucks; popping out a single row of bricks (from the top) is child's play with a chipping hammer.