OHW

Hello,

My wife and I have a 1906 cottage-type house that has been insensitively 'upgraded' with (first) insul-brick and (later) aluminum siding. I've just started removing both layers with the ultimate goal of restoring the original clapboards. This process is agonizingly slow due to the 30+ minutes it can take to remove a single ~18x24in insul-brick panel. I suspect it contains asbestos and thus I've been using a respirator mask and handling it gently whenever possible. Unfortunately, this approach has me removing nails one at a time with a nifty pliers/hammer/prybar routine that can get dicey at the top of a 30ft extension ladder. Please tell me there is a better/faster way of doing this that won't buy me mesothelioma. I've tried using a punch to pound each nail in deeper before trying to remove the panel, but this has its own risks and isn't any faster. Thanks in advance - I'm getting frustrated here!

Surely I'm not the first to encounter this problem... right?

Hi...I had insulbrick allover my front porch approx 10X 30ft I removed it using a pry bar and hammer. I found a join between
two sheets of the stuff and hammered my prybar into it and levered it off and then afterward I removed all the nails still
left in the wood. I now have lovely cedar ogee siding to look at. Please post pics of the before and after.
Good luck all it takes is patience and alot of muscle.

Hard to know if the insul-brick has asbestos or not. We tore it off our house back in the 1970's with no protection or worry and neither of us are dead yet (slowing down - but then heck - that was 30+ yrs ago!). There was asbestos siding, what I've seen was a "shingle-panel" type cement-ish type panel, quite brittle, often ridged vertically and painted. The insul-brick we took off were more like roof shingles, which were shaped like bricks, brown and black. More certainly like asphalt than cement-ish. Not that this helps - but if it is the asphalt type brick shingles then rip away. crow bar will take you a long way. Invite friends over and offer beer and pizza afterwards and put them to work! It's fun!

May need many beers and many pizzas Melissa. I agree if it is the asphalt type ( which mine was) it is much easier to remove
and probably safer too since the pieces can be cleaned up easily and do not pulverize into a harmful lead based dust. I wore
a mask and gloves just in case I encountered something more evil lurking underneath. I am hoping to tackle the side of the
house later this year. I am really hoping to find the same lovely cedar siding underneath.