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Dave Martindale Dave Martindale is offline
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Default Breaking up concrete

"BETA-33" writes:

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.


Though I didn't mention it, I'm already doing this. Using a heavy
shovel and a digging fork, I've been prying up one end of the concrete
and putting a rock underneath it, a few inches back from the end, so
that the concrete is unsupported at the end and stresses in the concrete
are concentrated around the rock. Without that, I would have gotten
nowhere with the hammer and chisel.

It seems the most common recommendation is to just get a bigger hammer
and hit the concrete with it directly, forgetting about the chisel. So
I think I'll try that.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

Dave