As part of tomorrow's "removal" operation, I have to jackhammer a brick wall.
This is done to facilitate removal of three machines (autoclaves), each about 5 feet diameter and 30 foot long. They are mounted "through the wall", so that 90% of them are outside, but the access door is on the inside.
I told the company that I would bring my tow behind compressor and jackhammer to hammer out about a foot of bricks around the autoclaves, so that then I can pull them out without having the wall follow them.
OK, so far so good.
Now I want to make sure that as I am jackhammering the wall, it would not suddenly crack, collapse, or otherwise give me trouble. This is a regular overlaid construction brick wall, partly cinderblock and partly brick.
Any experiences, am I overthinking that? Can a wall suddenly crack from local jackhammering?
Secondly, a jackhammer is very heavy, maybe 80 lbs. Obviously, no one can hold it horizontally for a long time. How do people deal with this? I wanted to have my partner support it with something suspended from forklift forks. Makes sense?
Note that I do have a jackhammer for a bobcat, but the access is no good and it will not be able to work in that area.
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