Salvageable?

[rachelhayton]

Hi, we're planning to start renovations on our property in January 2025. We love the old floor bricks in this former Victorian carriage house, but this area will eventually become our kitchen and will require underfloor heating. Unfortunately, this means we'll need to dig out the floor. Can anyone recommend a method to carefully remove and preserve these bricks for potential use elsewhere in the house? Thanks in advance!

 

[Cubist]

The best method in my view is to focus in one corner to begin with and try to get a single brick out by excavating the joints on all its sides. Once the first one or two bricks are extracted you should then be able to get a lever of some kind under the bottom of the neighbouring bricks to dislodge and allow them to be lifted out. This job will become considerably easier as you proceed. The greatest problem would be that a hard mortar was used as a 'grout' to fill the gaps after the bricks were first laid. This would make getting the first few bricks out considerable harder and of course would lead to a major job of cleaning off the mortar still adhered to the bricks to allow their later use.

If you're lucky that grout will be a coarse sand like material rather than a mortar.

 

[rachelhayton]

The best method in my view is to focus in one corner to begin with and try to get a single brick out by excavating the joints on all its sides. Once the first one or two bricks are extracted you should then be able to get a lever of some kind under the bottom of the neighbouring bricks to dislodge and allow them to be lifted out. This job will become considerably easier as you proceed. The greatest problem would be that a hard mortar was used as a 'grout' to fill the gaps after the bricks were first laid. This would make getting the first few bricks out considerable harder and of course would lead to a major job of cleaning off the mortar still adhered to the bricks to allow their later use.

If you're lucky that grout will be a coarse sand like material rather than a mortar.

Thank you, I appreciate your advice. Hopefully they will ease out with not too much trouble. Whoever laid them in the first place did a very good job with the pattern so I’d love to salvage enough to replicate it elsewhere. Fingers crossed! Thanks again.

 

[stuart45]

Looks like there's at least 1500 bricks there, so well worth the effort.

 

[rachelhayton]

Looks like there's at least 1500 bricks there, so well worth the effort.

Yes, I hate to think of them going to waste!

 

[rachelhayton]

Firstly we’ll clean them up, any recommendations for product/s and method? We were considering using a patio attachment for our pressure washer but I’m worried about using a cleaning solution that is too aggressive and could damage them.

 

[stuart45]

They look like concrete bricks from the photos, so any cleaner containing hydrochloric acid will attack them.

 

[Cubist]

The bricks surface will resist the cleaning agent, assuming you use something appropriate in light of Stuarts comment, the other risk comes from allowing the water jet to focus for too long on the surface of the bricks. That said though, the jet washer will soon reveal whether the grout is a mortar or sand.

 

[Flyfisher]

What a lovely floor!

I entirely agree with cubist above. I don't know how the Victorians would have laid such a floor but I do know that modern block paving is laid without any mortar, whether cement or lime based, and if that's also the case here then it should be very easy to lift these bricks with little or no damage.

I lifted all the pamments from an indoor room and they were simply laid on well compacted earth. It's always a little tricky to lift the first one or two but once that's done the others should be very easily eased out using a crowbar or pickaxe - basically something that can be easily placed under the brick/tile and then used to lever it up. If they are not bedded into any sort of mortar then lifting each brick will require very little effort and certainly not enough to break them. In my case, there were a fair number of broken tiles, but that was due to them already being cracked rather than being broken by lifting, which can be difficult to see when they are all being held together by surrounding bricks/tiles.

There are purpose-designed tools for lifting individual pavers but they are probably overkill for this specific job, especially of you can start lifting them from an edge. Worst case, you'll have to sacrifice one or two of the bricks in order to create an edge to work from, but after that it should be possible to lift them all with relative ease.

Definitely worth the effort though - good luck with it!

 

[rachelhayton]

They look like concrete bricks from the photos, so any cleaner containing hydrochloric acid will attack them.

Thanks for sharing this, will look out for and avoid hydrochloric acid.

 

[rachelhayton]

What a lovely floor!

I entirely agree with cubist above. I don't know how the Victorians would have laid such a floor but I do know that modern block paving is laid without any mortar, whether cement or lime based, and if that's also the case here then it should be very easy to lift these bricks with little or no damage.

I lifted all the pamments from an indoor room and they were simply laid on well compacted earth. It's always a little tricky to lift the first one or two but once that's done the others should be very easily eased out using a crowbar or pickaxe - basically something that can be easily placed under the brick/tile and then used to lever it up. If they are not bedded into any sort of mortar then lifting each brick will require very little effort and certainly not enough to break them. In my case, there were a fair number of broken tiles, but that was due to them already being cracked rather than being broken by lifting, which can be difficult to see when they are all being held together by surrounding bricks/tiles.

There are purpose-designed tools for lifting individual pavers but they are probably overkill for this specific job, especially of you can start lifting them from an edge. Worst case, you'll have to sacrifice one or two of the bricks in order to create an edge to work from, but after that it should be possible to lift them all with relative ease.

Definitely worth the effort though - good luck with it!

Thank you for sharing your experience and suggestions. We’ll give it our best shot.