Has anyone had experience of chasing in brickwork?

[hutch6447]

Good info, also as I am just used to surface laying this whole chase cutting is a bit of a new experience, now the chases has capping in it and has to be deep enough to accommodate it, the metal back boxes are 35mm deep so sometimes do you have to chase into the brickwork itself as sometimes you must o deeper than render? Take it this is the reason for vertically 1/3 wall thickness horizontally 1/6 no deeper than.

 

[GLENNSPARK]

use a scutch chisel to chase into brickwork so you can get the depth for capping to lie below the surface of plaster/render

 

[Spazz]

To get this right your installing new cables into a brick wall.

Would it be easier to dry line the wall, that would give you studs to mount your wires to - might be more costly in materials but possibly cheaper with your labor costs - of course thinking its inside a building in the warm and dry - might be something worth thinking about.

Your deduction in labor costs might be cheaper for the customer than the extra materials as you may only have to dry line 2 or 3 walls, all depends on how many walls have sockets and wires behind them

 

[telectrix]

generally, cables and capping just need you to chase out plaster depth. for back boxes , as you say, 25 - 35mm deep needs chasing the brickwork. best way i've found is to stitch drill the brick to the size of the box, then chip out with chisel.

 

[telectrix]

i hate dry lining, dot and dab. time saving bodge.

 

[GLENNSPARK]

sometimes though you will find that brickwork lies just beneath the plaster surface......so then you need to go into the brickwork.....but if i can avoid it i will..as i dont fancy spending ages banging out hard brick.....

 

[Spazz]

What you really need is a masonry circular saw or grinder. Cut your lines either side of the boxing and chisel it out - its easier than doing it all my hand

 

[hutch6447]

Yes just because i have been a sparky last 12 years in the army anything we have installed as bee surface mounted so all this is fairly new to me!

 

[KFH]

I have tried most methods for digging out brickwork for boxes and have settled on a core drill (4") to set the depth and then a SDS chisel, if you are lucky the whole core comes out in one or two chunks leaving you the corners to tidy with the SDS chisel. A box chaser works on soft brick and blockwork, even if you only use the drill part to get rid of most of the hole and a chisel for the corners.

My left hand has now refused to hold a chisel when my right hand has a hammer in it. I have finally worked out that I get the best results if I hit the metal bit on the end of the chisel rather than my hand but I still hit my hand out of habit. So now I am just aiming for white finger with the SDS hammer

 

[Andy78]

Second vote here or scutch chisel being weapon of choice. When i have a lot of brick to chase out I sometimes switch to my dewalt 110v with rotary stop and chisel attatchment. Good for chases, but i aways do boxes by hand to keep them neat for fixing into.

 

[telectrix]

an ounce of semtex makes a nice hole.

 

[BillyH]

Second vote here or scutch chisel being weapon of choice. When i have a lot of brick to chase out I sometimes switch to my dewalt 110v with rotary stop and chisel attatchment. Good for chases, but i aways do boxes by hand to keep them neat for fixing into.

Must have a good price in if hand chasing.

 

[hutch6447]

Yeah got a casing tool and everything seems fairly straight forward after all you can gauge what your dealing with when you sink your back box in, just worried that if you are going say 5mm into brickwork that there is a chance of cracking the brick?

 

[telectrix]

not proper bricks, but some of the crap they use nowadays has the strength and consistency of weetabix.

 

[hutch6447]

do you normally chase out by hand or do you use a chisel drill?

 

[Richard]

I'm amazed no one has mentioned using a Wall chaser! Disc the wall where needed, SDS max - end of story!

 

[derek preece]

We use a Hilti chaser (basically a grinder with 2 disks, with wheels for running up the wall and adjustable depth). Then use a lightweight breaker after that.

 

[Deleted member 9648]

Chasing machine with a vacum attatchment....consists of two parallel 4" diamond blades about 25mm apart,cuts a chase deep enough for 20mm conduit...nice and neat. Connected to a standard commercial vac there is virtually no dust,I've used it to cut chases in decorated and furnished rooms. not cheap but if you do a lot it will pay for itself in no time at all.
Cutting boxes in brick nothing touches a line of 6mm holes round the outline and a club hammer and chisel.

Edit...Derek uses the same set-up evidently!

 

[GLENNSPARK]

not proper bricks, but some of the crap they use nowadays has the strength and consistency of weetabix.

thermalite and cavity block........gone straight through it loads of times.....

 

[johnboy6083]

buy the scutch chiselfor an SDS drill with roto stop. Its the dogs