"Lacustral" wrote in message
...
How would you demo a small cinderblock wall? It's about 20 cinderblocks
long, not attached to anything except to a section of wall I want - but
there's a crack between the section I want to take out and the section I
want, so that may be fine. It's about 3 cinderblocks high, the bottom
cinderblock was apparently halfway buried in the ground as a footer. It's
mortared. I don't know if it has any metal reinforcement, it probably
doesn't need any.

Seems most folks think a sledge hammer will do.

It may. I tried a few whacks on the cinderblock walls I was tearing down.
No fun. Hard to do, chunks of concrete flying in the face, hard to get at
the stuff in the ground, created more rubble than easy-to-grab chunks,
inaccurate...just a big pain in the rump.

I rented a demolition hammer for a couple days and tore the hell out of
those walls. It's basically a small, handheld jackhammer. Plug it in, rest
the tip against the cinderblock, and pull the trigger. Once you take out a
couple blocks, you'll have the hang of it, knocking out good size chunks you
can deal with. If you end up with too-big chunks, just bust them up with
the demo hammer. You can easily get at the stuff under the ground after you
brush some of the dirt out of the way. Dig a little hole next to the block
where you want to start, so the chunk will have somewhere to go, then just
knock out one block or so at a time.

Oh, and it's fun as hell, too.

Turned out some of the cinderblock wall was 'repaired' at one time with real
concrete, high strength stuff. It was tough to take out even with the demo
hammer. Forget using a sledge on that.

Some Home Depots rent them. Last one I rented came from United Rentals. I
think it cost something like $45 a day. Sounds like a lot, that is, until
you find that using a sledge sends one too many chunks of concrete smacking
you in the forehead.

One of the contractors I had in for another job stole my sledge. I was
grateful.

CS