brickglueremoval
I just removed glued-on paneling from an interior brick wall. Now, I have the task of removing the glue from said brick. What is the best method of doing so? I know there's no getting around the use of a scraper, obviously, but wanted to get input from you all 🙂
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Tool rental places probably rent concrete grinders for big jobs like refinishing concrete floors and then you can use a sander that get get into corners.
Floor Grinder
Concrete Sander
You can probably rent one or both of these, depending on the amount of glue. If it's just spotty you can probably use the hand sander.
Like I said, these are for professionally prepare floors for concrete finishing. If it is thin you might try belt sander or palm sander, and buy a sampling of sand papers and see which works best.
Belt Sander
Palm Sander
"Is there a good and code-compliant way -- and barring that, just a good way -- to rectify this situation WITHOUT REMOVING THE BRICK OR INTERNAL STRUCTURE?"
No.
"I am planning to remove all of the sheetrock and insulation in the affected rooms, cut the brick ties (most of which are rusted anyway) after supporting the fascia from the exterior, slip housewrap between the studs and the fascia, and then slip a sheet of 4x8 1/2" (or less, I think I saw 1/4") of extruded foam sheathing between the studs and the housewrap. The entire thing will be re-anchored and affixed from the outside using CTP Grip Ties or a similar product. This should provide a watertight, sheathed, and even (insufficiently) thermally broken envelope without having to do any tearout work beyond the sheetrock."
Your plan sounds like it could work, (except for the challenge of slipping 4x8 sheets of anything between studs and your bricks).
As a suggestion, I would use diagonal metal strapping for lateral brace across the studs if you are not using structural sheathing (i.e. foam).
See this article (goto page 2) and below image from finehomebuilding.
Best Answer
As the comment said, a heat gun may make scraping this off much easier. First, try scraping some off without a heat gun. You might get lucky and it might "break" off the surface in large solid pieces. If it does, the heat gun might make it more difficult. If it does not come off easily, then I'd try the heat gun.
Start a low temperature and work your way up gradually until the adhesive softens up; you don't want to burn it, just soften it up. Please beware that heating this adhesive might release harmful vapors. Make sure your area is well ventilated when doing this. You might even opt to wear a respirator.
I would personally stay away from solvents in this case especially if you do not know what type of adhesive it is.