How To Repair Broken Brick

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Skillful brickwork tin definitely stand the test of time, merely bricks aren't impervious to damage. One time a brick splits, cracks, or flakes, go ahead and replace it to prevent moisture seepage or structural problems.^[ane] If you lot want to do the job yourself instead of calling a professional person brick mason, check below for a helpful footstep-by-footstep guide. And make sure to put on piece of work gloves, eye protection, and a dust mask before you get started!

Things Yous Should Know

After removing the one-time brick and mortar, either clean cosmetic harm on old bricks and then they can be reused or utilize old bricks to find the correct size and shape for replacement bricks.
Trowel the bottom layer of the new brick's hole and in thinner layers, trowel the left and right sides of the hole.
Later on applying a thick layer of mortar on the top and sides of the replacement brick, insert the brick at an angle and scrape abroad excess mortar.

1
Drill a series of holes into the mortar all the mode around the bad brick. This method takes a bit more time than using an angle grinder, merely is easier for the average DIYer. Apply a masonry bit and drill into the mortar as deep as the bit allows. Drill the holes every bit close together as possible to break upwards the mortar and gratis the brick.^[two]
- Drill into the mortar closer to the bad brick than to the practiced surrounding bricks. Otherwise, you may damage them.
- Squirt or spray water onto the area earlier y'all start drilling, and often while drilling, to reduce the amount of masonry dust.
2
Cut into the mortar with an bending grinder instead of using a drill. This is a faster culling to drilling, simply carries a higher risk of damaging the surrounding bricks. Put a masonry blade on your angle grinder, and so cut straight into the mortar with the spinning blade, all the way around the damaged brick. Cut into the centre of each mortar joint, or peradventure a bit closer to the damaged brick than the undamaged surrounding ones.^[3]
- But like when using a drill, spray or squirt water over the work expanse earlier you showtime and every then often during the process.
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3

Endeavor to jiggle the brick gratuitous once you've broken up the mortar. If the brick is already actually loose or broken in multiple pieces, information technology'll probably come out fairly easily past hand. If the brick won't come up out this way, movement on to using a chisel or drill to go information technology out.^[four]
4
Knock through whatever stubborn mortar with a chisel to loosen the brick. Concur the broad, beveled bract of your bolster chisel against the mortar and smack the apartment tip of the handle firmly with your lump hammer (small sledgehammer). Keep chipping away at the mortar until the brick is loose enough to remove by hand.^[5]
- A eternalize chisel has a wider bract than a common cold chisel. Both chisels, along with a lump hammer, are essential tools for any brick removal job.
5

Drill through and break upwards the brick if it refuses to come up out. Even when damaged, some bricks actually don't want to leave their spot! If you can't pull or chisel out the entire brick, employ a masonry bit to drill a serial of vertical holes in the brick'south center. Hit the brick with your lump hammer solitary, or with your hammer and cold chisel, to break it into pieces. Remove the broken pieces of brick from the wall.^[6]
six
Bit away the mortar around the brick'southward erstwhile location with a chisel. Set the blade of your bolster chisel or cold chisel against a section of the remaining mortar and lightly tap the handle with your lump hammer. Strike only as firmly as is needed to break costless the mortar. Work carefully and then y'all don't impairment the surrounding bricks. Try to go as of mortar you can.^[7]
- Use your fingers and a mitt brush to sweep all the mortar chips and other dust and debris out of the opening.

1
Utilise the removed brick to find a color and size match. If the damaged brick came out in one piece, utilize it to find a color, mode, and size friction match. If you only accept cleaved pieces, use those for a color match just also write downward the length, width, and height measurements of one of the remaining bricks in the wall. Become to a hardware store, structure supply retailer, or brickyard to find your closest match.^[8]
- If in that location are manufacturer markings on the brick, y'all may exist able to track down a perfect lucifer. Otherwise, aim to get the closest match you can find.
- Look around in a basement, garage, shed, etc. for whatever spare bricks left behind from when the wall was built. You may be in luck!
2
Consider reusing the removed brick if it has but superficial harm. If the face up of the removed brick is just stained or marred, or even if it has only small cracks or calorie-free spalling (flaking), yous should be able to merely flip it around and reuse it! So long as the brick withal looks and feels structurally audio and solid, it'll be fine to reuse.^[ix]
- To reuse the brick, though, y'all'll have to carefully scrap away all the remaining mortar that's stuck to it.
3

Soak the replacement (or reused) brick in h2o for nigh an hour. Fill up a saucepan most halfway with h2o so fully submerge the mortar-free replacement brick (or salvaged brick from the wall) in it. Soaking the brick ensures that it doesn't suck up the moisture from the mortar and dry it out too apace.^[10]
4
Mix upwardly near 1/ten to 1/5 of a bag of brick mortar mix. A typical 80 lb (36 kg) bag of brick mortar mix, when combined with h2o, makes enough mortar for about 40 bricks. That means you lot only need to mix up most x-xx% of the bag's contents to install one brick and have some extra mortar if needed. Stir together this small batch of mortar in a bucket according to the ratio on the package—for case, by adding iv scoops of water for each one scoop of mortar mix.^[11]
- Starting time using this batch of mortar inside 30 minutes of mixing it.
- If you desire to more than closely match the existing brick mortar, stir in a few drops of mortar coloring (available alongside mortar mixes) according to the package instructions.
- To get an even more precise colour match, mix up several very small batches of mortar with varying amounts of mortar coloring in them 24 hours beforehand. Employ the mortar samples to cardboard and compare the colors when they dry out.

1

Wet the surrounding bricks commencement then they suck upwardly less mortar moisture. Spray all the existing bricks that will be adjacent to the new brick with a hose or a spray bottle until they are completely damp. Otherwise, they'll leech out the water from the new mortar too quickly, which makes information technology brittle.^[12]
2
Trowel a thick layer of mortar on the bottom of the opening in the wall. Scoop up a nice glob of mortar from the saucepan with your pointed trowel, so eolith it on top of the brick or bricks that are straight below where the replacement brick will go. Add more than mortar as needed and spread information technology out similar cake frosting then you lot take effectually a 1 in (2.5 cm) layer of mortar.^[13]
- Don't worry well-nigh making the mortar await nice and neat here—just brand certain to create a nice thick bed for the new brick to squish down onto.
3
Spread thinner, adequately fifty-fifty mortar layers onto the left and right sides. One time you've added a thick bed of mortar to the lesser of the opening, scoop up some more mortar and press it against the bricks to each side. Aim to make the mortar effectually ^ane⁄₂ –ane in (1.iii–2.five cm) thick on the sides.^[14]
- Some of the mortar will fall off—don't worry most that. Merely endeavour to get an fifty-fifty layer with full coverage.
4
Pull the new brick from the water and "butter" its top and sides. Hold the brick on the lesser with ane paw and use your pointed trowel to add a good ane in (2.v cm) layer of mortar to the peak of the brick. So add together ⁱ⁄₂ –1 in (1.three–2.v cm) layers to the two sides that will be embedded in the wall.^[15]
- This is called "buttering" the brick—just like your forenoon toast!

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ane
Insert the brick at an bending and wiggle it into place with your fingers. Line up the brick with the opening, then tilt the face (the side pointed towards you) slightly downwards. Slide the brick into the opening and lift the face side to level the brick. Wiggle the brick back and forth as you press it in to set up information technology firmly into the mortar bed. Go along wiggling and nudging the brick equally needed until it's fifty-fifty with the surrounding bricks.^[xvi]
- Line upwardly the new brick every bit perfectly as you can while the new mortar is still soft.
two

Use a trowel, with or without a brick jointer, to printing in more mortar. If you don't take a brick jointer, load upwards mortar along one side of your pointed trowel and press into each articulation around the new brick. This process is faster and neater if you lot have a brick jointer—a tool that looks like a directly or angled rod. In this instance, apply the jointer to slide mortar off of the trowel and into the joints. Proceed pressing mortar into the joints until they simply won't take any more.^[17]
3
Use a trowel handle or jointer to tidy up and shape the mortar joints. Virtually brick walls accept concave—inward dipping—mortar joints. Assuming this is the case, slide the rounded handle tip of your trowel, or the concave border of your brick jointer, along each mortar joint and so they match the concave look of the existing joints.^[18]
- If the wall has flat mortar joints, skip this part.
4
Scrape away the excess mortar on the bricks with a trowel blade. Work carefully so you don't mess up the nice concave (or flat) joints you lot made in the mortar between the bricks. Make curt, quick scrapes across the face of each brick in the surface area to remove the excess mortar.^[19]
- Use a clammy rag to wipe away any remaining bits of mortar on the bricks.

Add together New Question

Question

How many bricks can you safely remove at once? If I need to supercede half dozen bricks in i spot can I take them all out at once or should I replace one at a time?

At ane end of the course of bricks, accept out two bricks. And then supercede ane brick with new mortar. One time set, take out the next brick, maintaining a gap of just one brick.
Question

The damaged brick I want to replace is London Stock. What should the pointing be fabricated up of?

Don't utilise cement-based mortar, it is too hard. Employ lime mortar - level 3 hardness for outside, but level 2 is okay for inside.

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While not absolutely necessary, consider spraying the repaired area with h2o a couple of times a twenty-four hour period for iii or 4 days. This will assist the mortar to cure more slowly and adhere improve to the bricks.

While replacing ane brick is frequently a manageable DIY job, replacing multiple, contiguous bricks is usually best left to the pros. Attempting a complicated DIY masonry job that you're not experienced enough for, then having to hire a mason to ready your mess, will toll you lot more money in the long run.
Always wear safety spectacles, a dust mask, and work gloves when doing brickwork.