A few years of tending the landscaping around the garden and sidewalk area of the yard have left me with a firm resolve to install some brick garden walls instead of the crappy little things that get torn up with the weed eater. But I’m cheap, so I don’t want to shell out a bunch of green for brick. My question: Does anyone know a semi-reliable way to attain brick seconds or leftovers?
I just need something I can make one-foot-high garden/landscaping walls with — and the initial pop of new material can be a little high for a “nice-to-have” item like this. I don’t need a lot of it, and they don’t even have to match each other. If I have to go to five different places and get as many different colors of brick or stone, I’m fine with that.
Am I better off just eating the cost, or can this be done Toolmonger-style, on the cheap? Let me know in comments.
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15 Responses to Reader Question: Bricks On The Cheap?
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Habitat for Humanity has stores that sell salvaged construction and remodeling supplies: http://hfhi.org/cd/env/restore.aspx
I was fortunate enough to find a *lot* of bricks from someone on Freecycle. They were remodeling, and they tore out what seemed to be a wall and an entire chimney worth of bricks. It took some sorting to find the whole bricks that weren’t completely coated in plaster, but there were enough in there to suit my purposes.
Demolition contractors.
Freecycle or Craigslist (under free). Don’t just look, make a posting asking for them.
I just set a bed of old bricks in my shop for my wood stove using bricks I got for free.
When I was a kid my dad acquired a bunch of old firebrick from somewhere. We loaded up an old flatbed trailer and brought them home. He doesn’t have his legs, so he would sit on the tractor and direct us while we worked. I remember getting the last brick off that trailer and him saying “That’s the one I was looking for.” I was about 11 or 12, and I didn’t think it was very damn funny.
David,
you may not have thought that funny, but it sure did make me laugh just now!
Me too David, thanks.
Craigslist is your friend, as noted above.
You would not believe what you can get for projects for free.
David, lol here too, I’ll have to remember that one to use on my son one day.
David–not trying to steal your anecdote, but that’s said a lot down south when you get to the last one!
That’s where we was when he said it.
I’ve got a pile of brick with no purpose (at the moment) in my garden… you can have them !
I’m in the UK though…
CRAIGSLIST
Hell, I have a complete brick retaining wall I’m replacing. Come get them!!!!
Knew someone who got them from the town he lived in to build a bar in his basement. They were from a road replacement or something, jus piled in the dpww lot. He stopped and asked, and they gave. Can’t hurt to check muncipalities.