What's the best way to demo a 15'x15' concrete patio? I was going to use a cut-off saw to cut it into pieces, then pick them up with forks and into the truck. Somebody suggested to me to use an electric jackhammer instead of the cut-off saw. Either way, I have to make a trip to the rental center. Which way would the experts do it :notworthy Take care... Joe
How thick is it, and how much reinforcing is in it? If you can reach it with the Bobcat, and it isn't too thick, you might be able to do it with nothing more than a sledge hammer. Tired back, yes, but the extra bucks in your wallet will help to ease the pain. Forget the saw, period. Unless you'll need it to cut rebar... You'd be surprised what you can do with a sledge hammer, especially if you put a little tension in the concrete. Try getting your teeth under the edge of the patio, and lifting it, even just an inch. A couple of good swings will break off a chunk. Repeat as necessary... (Now, if it's six inches thick you may need the jackhammer.)
There are gas powered jackhammers now too that work very well. Digger is right though, with 2 guys swapping an 8 lb sledge you should have it broken up in about an hour.
be a man, get a 20lb sledge and got to town. like digger said if you lift up some and have a guy swing at it a few times it should snap pretty easy.
On the other hand, if you'd like to stay a man, the 8 lb will just take a little longer... :yup
My back is getting sore thinking about swinging a sledge hammer :yup A Bosch Brute electric jack hammer will work I have used one quite abit sure saves the swinging a hammer work. You never know how well the patio is constructed you get some of these people that over do things and use alot of rebar or wire mesh. If you can get a skid steer or mini ex into the area and try lift a corner then throw a timber under and crack the concrete into managable chunks. You want to remove the patio in the largest pieces possible or what ever will fit into the truck or dumpster bin. It means less little chunks you have to pick up by hand.
I took one out once, about 12 X 16. I expected to be able to do it the way I described. :spaz I grabbed one corner of it with the backhoe, and eventually spun the whole thing 180 degrees and it never cracked! If the trailer had been closer I'd have taken it home and slid it off into my own yard.
It you can lift it a little even just a corner pick it up and drop it a few times. Even with bar in it this should break it up enough to get at the bar to cut it. I would see what you can do with a sledge hammer and by dropping it before I went and got anything else IMO electric jackhammer are worth less unless your time and a lot of it is all you would be losing.
well the last one i had to demo was 15' X 42' and about 8-10" thick just rented the demo hamer on the backhoe pluse there was rebar thru out .Made quick work of it. If ya got to rent it why break your behinde make it easy for yourself.
If you can pick up a corner and drop, do that a few times it could break up. Another way is pick up a corner of it and put something under it so it does not lay flat. Then drive on with your skid. That works for me. If not rent air hammer and an Illegal immigrant a lot faster.:bouncegri :bouncegri Just kidding
What everyone said. I tore out a 16x16 3" slab last week using bobcat bucket. lift a corner and if it don't break on it's own, nail it with a sledge. If you can unseat it from it's pad, and get it to bounce, it'll go pretty quick. Two weeks ago I tore out a 40'x40' shop floor. But I elected to rent a breaker for the Bobcat on that Job. On the other hand, I had a 4'x2' pad that someone had poured to set garbage cans on. Homeower offered me $125 to bust it out. I had a sledge in my pickup, so I said sure. The thing was 16" deep ! I had to go rent a 75# electric hammer.
make DAMN sure the patio slab isn't doweled into house foundation. you could end up damaging that if not careful
I wondered when somebody was going to think of that!!Ron G:notworthy
Thanks for the advice guys...I'm going to try the "pick up a corner and bust it with a sledgehammer", but I figure the $50 to have the electric breaker on the truck is cheap insurance. Hopefully my little Bobcat S175 will have enough guts to pick it up. We'll see what tomorrow brings... Joe
Sounds like you've got it figured out. I'm not afraid to swing the hammer, many times I can have the job done in the time it would take to go to the rental center to pick up the jack hammer.
You could always try find the biggest boulder the bobcat can pick up take it over to the slab raise the boom up and drop the boulder in the center of the slab and see if it cracks the slab. Trust me its easier to use a machine than go see the chiropractor afterwards because you put your back out swinging a sledge hammer.
You shouldn't have a problem. Rather then trying to dead lift the slab, dig your teeth and leading edge under the slab, and then curl your bucket open and close as you work your "wedge" under. most slabs will start to crack at this point.
Make sure you have a strong bucket before trying what I am about to suggest. I have found that if you put a 4X4 under the bucket about midpoint and then stick the front edge under the slab, you multiply your force significantly and you would be amazed at what can be curled with your machine. You can experiment where to put the 4X4 to give you the most leverage. I have modified a 78 in. John Deere 4in1 skid steer bucket to use on my Bobcat S250 because it is significantly beefier than the Bobcat 4in1 (it weighs 1200+ lbs.). I have used the 4X4 with this bucket with amazing results, especially curling up the corner of very large slabs of concrete.
That's why the make hammers for the machines spend the $$$$ on the hammer not the Doctor!!!!
:laugh ... a sledgehammer, yea right... :laugh It's done, but it took a good 5 hours with the electric breaker to get it done (including loading the truck and making the trips to the dump site). It was pretty well built with both mesh and rebar, and it was pinned to the house. Maybe I'm a wuss, but since I was working right up next to the house, with a nice set of french doors, I didn't get too crazy with the skidsteer. Joe
Here's one I had to do a couple of weeks ago - 10 - 15" at places Me thinks we found where the concrete truck got to dump it's extras when they poured the foundation :laugh Spent a couple of hours with the Bosh electric hammer trying to make a cross in it so we could hopefully break it into 4 at least. I can't remember which number model machine the mini ex is, but it couldn't lift it at all to drop it a little. I wasn't there for the eventual solution to get pics My sub has a new truck with a 5 ton grapple. So he picked up the also way overpoured but thankfully just a step for the other single door back there, and dropped that a couple of times to break up the big slab. I wouldn't rent a saw for these situations, but since I have one I do use it. In this case I saw cut the cross into the top, then when the hammer was going in, it was getting much deeper because it had a start already. Plus the cuts will add to the leverage forces when doing the lifting & dropping method or the lifting & setting a timber etc under them to drive on or hammer away method. Definitely helps get them broken quicker.
Looks like a Bobcat 325 or 328, 3 ton machine.
Glad to hear you got it even though it took so long. If you are doing very much removal of flat work with that machine. I would suggest Powersledge from Universal Impact Technologies. Man sized sledge from the seat of your loader. We have had real good luck with ours and not much maintenance (just grease). I would also be real careful with using 4X4's and prying. The buckets are designed for what they are designed for and once you go past the limits (which could be real easy in this case) you are screwed. It is ante up to a new bucket. I have bent one before with no prying just lifting and it was a HD bucket. When lifting/prying with the bucket. Make sure you use the corners and not the middle. That is where it is the strongest. If that doesn't work then you need to look at a different approach. Dropping works to if you are 100% sure you know exactly where the dropped item will go which is REAL ard when dropping from a loader and not your hand. If is rolls the wrong way......You know. We used to remove drives by lifting and dropping on other pieces but that was fairly unsafe. Once we got the Powersledge, we were able do go just as fast and in most cases faster because we can get it into smaller pieces and therefore able to get more into the the truck/less trips.
in reality a skid steer bucket isn't intented to pry up concrete, no matter where on the bucket you're doing it. i've seen skiddies running around here with sprung boom arms that even with new buckets, will not lay flat on the ground. i like your sledge hammer attachment idea, or the hydraulic hammer attachment idea. get it in small enough pieces and broke loose from the rest of the slab before you go scooping them up. a slab that size with the hydraulic hammer attachment would have been about a 15 min. thing breaking up. it'd taken longer to attach, take off the hammer than the actual breakup of the slab and have no damage to your machine. speaking of rented attachments. i have a friend who does a lot of bobcat work and uses a lot of rented attachments. he had the dealer install a filter on the return side of that circuit. he's afraid of contamination that might already be in the rented attachment, or the lines that come with it, and wants to make sure he has them filtered out before it reaches his system. do any of you do that?
I totally agree though the Powersledge is even faster and less up front cost also. I don't know what we payed for it at the time but it is 6-7 years old and have not one problem with it. If it is 6" thick or less, then this is faster than a hydraulic hammer. It does do thicker stuff but may take more blows to do something where the hydraulic hammer he might be able to penetrate and crack it faster. Sorry i forget the link the first time. http://www.powersledge.com/index.php?pr=Psledge
Didn't see how thick the slab was, but I know of people who remove sidewalks with grapple trucks, and seems like it could have worked for the patio too. They saw it into 5-10 ft segments (with the sidewalk being a little less than 5ft wide) then just grab it with the bucket. If you want to you can see a video here (just click the video button on the bottom left): http://www.petersenind.com/road.htm