reclaiming bricks from a wall? how?

[oopslateagain]

We have a little brick wall separating our house from the alley, with an archway and a gate. We want to knock the wall down and put a nice wooden fence with a gate, but we'd like to re-use the bricks for a garden wall.

We were quoted over £1000 to knock down the wall, remove the rubble, and put in a fence and gate.

We were also quoted almost £1000 to build a little 12" high wall around the garden.

We've been thinking about it and wonder if we can do it ourselves, is it really as simple as whacking away with a sledgehammer and knocking the mortar off the bricks so they can be re-used?

Dh rather fancies giving it a go, on the basis that it will be free and if it doesn't work out we can always call in the experts to do it.

I'm not too convinced of his ability to build a fence and gate from scratch, but I'm willing to let him have a go (and I'm quite looking forward to letting rip with a sledgehammer

Anyone have any experience of this sort of thing?

Are we insane?

I've built 6" high walls - bricklaying if it's not going to be holding up a house or something important isn't very difficult. You do need to make sure they're level though and get the right tools. To knock the mortar off you just need a chisel, a hammer and a bit of patience.

I think the quote is quite high because it's a bit of a laborious process

I think most of the quote was for labour. I'm thinking we can at least do the knocking down, then maybe get a brickie to build the wall if we don't think we're up to it.

God, don't use a sledgehammer if you ant to reuse the bricks :o

Club hammer and bolster chisel. It is exceedingly tedious and you will lose a certain percentage of bricks. It is also strangely satisfying...

Yup, hammer and chisel, and gently and patiently does it. If you are lucky it's been done with soft mortar which will come off easily, if not the mortar will be harder than the bricks and the job will be a total bitch.

In which case I would just go at it with a sledgehammer and buy new bricks, tbh, much as it would pain my recycling spirit to do so.

Well I know some of the bricks are rubbish, they are bright red and are sort of 'cleaving' like slate. That's part of the reason the arch has to come down, I'm sweeping up bits of brick every day

I think we'll have a go with a sledge to get rid of the red bricks - they are at the edge. We can see if the mortar will come off then, if it's too much then we'll hammer the whole lot. I hope we can reclaim the bricks, especially the decorative ones!

good luck! It's actually great fun taking the sledgehammer to something

(well, for the first 10 minutes. Afterwards it's bloody hard work)