Fill In Large Hole in Wall

[nesbit]

Hi,

I have an old reverse cycle aircon that needs to be removed, you know the old style ones that are half in the wall and hanging outside. Anyway is there anything to worry when removing these units (except for weight). And can anyone offer advice or best practice on how to rebrick the hole left by the aircon?

thanks

[BobL]

Hi,

I have an old reverse cycle aircon that needs to be removed, you know the old style ones that are half in the wall and hanging outside. Anyway is there anything to worry when removing these units (except for weight). And can anyone offer advice or best practice on how to rebrick the hole left by the aircon?

thanks

RE: Weight, they are heavier than you think so I suggest you seek help with that.

RE: Plugging up the hole. I assume the house is double brick and one side is feature brick and the other is plastered? If not you can adapt the following to suit.

If you are an amateur brickie a big problem is how to pull the bricks (especially on that last row) back that have been pushed too far inwards inwards towards the wall cavity. Here is a neat trick that has worked for me. On the feature brick side neatly cut out all the half bricks that remain around the edge of the hole so the new bricks can interlock into the wall. Cut out a piece of thick polystyrene that will just fit into the hole and just span the internal wall cavity gap. You can jam it into the cavity a bit with wooden wedges or whatever. Then you brick up against the polystyrene. The poly stops the bricks from falling into the cavity.

If strength is not an issue, another trick I have heard about is to neatly glue half bricks onto the poly before placing it in the hole and then just grouting up the joints.

And finally a bushie solution to pulling the bricks back is to make a small wire hook from coat hanger wire that you can insert in the mortar gaps. This will reduce the mortar strength but you may only need to do this for 1 or 2 bricks. Getting that final brick in is tricky but you can do it by placing it on a trowel, insert the trowel into the hole and then sliding it off the trowel.

[Jacksin]

Its only a suggestion but I had one owner who wanted the hole framed up and turned into a window to allow natural light in a dark corner of the room.