Breaking up concrete

Our house has a flower bed immediately in front of the foundation. There's a patch in the flower bed that has no significant plants growing in it, and we decided to add some. When we tried to dig a hole to plant them, we discovered why there aren't any plants there:

It seems that someone had some leftover concrete, perhaps from pouring a stairway nearby that goes from driveway level up to front lawn level, and they simply dumped the excess concrete into the area that would eventually be the flower bed. There is a chunk of concrete about 6 inches thick, 6 feet long, and 2.5 feet wide in there, with a few inches of dirt over it. The concrete is not attached to the foundation or the sidewalk, it's just lying there. But it's too heavy to move as a single piece.

So I've been breaking it up into smaller pieces, using a single-point concrete chisel and a 3 pound club hammer. This just doesn't work very well for breaking 6 inch thick concrete. I end up holding the chisel in one hand and the hammer in the other until I get the chisel embedded far enough to stand up on its own, then I switch to two hands on the hammer. Sometimes this works in a half-dozen strikes, sometimes it never works and I try moving the chisel somewhere else. I've probably spent a couple of hours on this already, and it's down to half the original size, but progress is discouragingly slow.

The two ways to improve the situation seem to be: get a bigger hammer (e.g. a long-handled sledgehammer), or some sort of power hammer. What would be suitable for 6 inch concrete?

Dave

Reply to
Dave Martindale
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1) You can rent an electric jack hammer from any tool rental place. They are fairly inexpensive to rent and I think should probably work.

2) You can use a 4x4, or a strong crow bar, or something similar, as a lever to raise one end of the concrete up. Then place something solid under the raised piece of concrete. Then hit the concrete with a sledge hammer. When the concrete is embedded in the dirt, hitting it with a sledge hammer probably will not break it, but when it's raised up a few inches, hitting it will cause it to crack and break.

3) You can dig a deeper hole next to and under the remaining piece of concrete and just bury it deeper into the ground where it is.
Reply to
BETA-33

An electric hammer from a rental place will make short work of it. About 10 minutes.

I'd go for a bigger hammer/chisel but if you want to get rid of it quickly, the electric hammer is all you need.

Reply to
Dan Espen

Yup, Dave, it's time to upgrade your tools for something that thick:

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Reply to
mike

This animation link posted by "Mike" below is useful:

Reply to
BETA-33

The bright side is you have half of it out already.

Try to lever one in up and place a brick, rock, lumber or such to hold the concrete off the ground. Then try a sledge hammer. I would try to break into two pieces - across the middle, then see if they are manageable.

If you have a hammer drill and masonry bit; drill a few relief holes across the center. Try the sledge again.

A rental unit will only take a few minutes to break it up:)

Reply to
Oren

Get a large wedge (or two) and a sledge hammer. A jack hammer would make quick work of it too, but you still have to haul it out and away. Protect your back, lift from the knees and never twist the body and lift. Get a teenager or two to help you.

Reply to
Phisherman

Read the thread, did you?!

Reply to
Oren

Like talking to a brick wall.

Reply to
Oren

Forget the monolith. Get some landscape timbers or concrete blocks, build a perimeter, dump in some dirt, and plant flowers in your elevated bed.

Reply to
Norminn

That is harder than the concrete

Reply to
gfretwell

I read it too, but see nothing that indicates a back hoe would not work. What did we miss?

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

He is down to a 3' x 2.5' slab, 2 more hours of chipping away with the little hammer or get 3 more guys and carry it out in one piece. Sure, backhoe and dump truck should work too.

Reply to
Frank

Maybe not, but there's a picture of a guy doing just that in my dictionary under "ambition". -----

- gpsman

Reply to
gpsman

Except brick wall don't talk back.

Reply to
Frank

That brings to mind the movie Shawshank Redemption, given "ambition" and time, one could do wonders with even a tiny hammer.

Reply to
Frank

It will work if you consider that a fun way to spend your day. I'd have gotten the jack hammer from the start. Or the back hoe

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

When my Dad went to break up the deck behind the house. What worked for him:

Make a "door stop" shaped wedge, out of pressure treated. Use a big lever (pry bar) and a fulcrum to lift the end of the cement. Ram the wedge under. You need air space under the slab.

Pound on the top with a big sledge hammer. The cement will break in one point, and then you need to wedge a bit further down the slab.

Cement laying on the ground will never split. It has to be raised into the air, if only a fraction of an inch.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Read t his post after I typed mine -- honest!

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Friends tell me to hold the electic jack hammer away from your body. If you lean it against your body while it's running, you'll hurt yourself.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

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