Best way to break up a section of concrete driveway?
I just want to make a channel of about 4ft by 1ft wide to lay pipes in, but not sure how to break up a section of the driveway to do this? It seems to be thick concrete with lots of big stones in it!
Would an SDS Drill do it? Or a diamond disc on an angle grinder?
First, have you considered tunneling UNDER the 4' length of driveway? It gets a bit messy, but requires minimal skill to complete. I've done this a few times in different homes (replaced the water main, installed sprinklers, installed drainage).
Dig a hole at each end to your desired depth (deep is good, but more work). If access on one side is going to be tight (right up against your house, for instance), plan on digging the other hole bigger to give you plenty of room to work.
Dig in from each end as well as you can, keeping the hole reasonably sized (you don't need to excavate all the dirt and risk cracking your driveway).
Once you've dug as far as you can, time to use hydropower. Outfit a length of PVC pipe with hose fittings, so you can connect it to a garden house on the back, and a brass hose nozzle on the front. Connect it up, push the pipe in the hole, and start blasting with water. Use a short length of hose to syphon out your work hole. Depending on your soil, you can get through pretty fast. If things slow down, wiggle and poke the PVC pipe to try to dislodge any rocks that are in the way.
If you abolutely must cut concrete, don't try to tackle the driveway with tools that aren't up to the task. You'll just burn out your tools before you go back and rent the right stuff.
Be sure to gear up - sturdy boots, pants, long sleeved shirt, ear plugs and safety glasses.
Rent a concrete saw and a demolition hammer. If your rental store isn't far away, rent one at a time. No sense paying for both rentals at once if things go slow. Once you've cut the lines for your channel, have FUN with the jackhammer. Extra credit points for shouting out the names of any states the chunks resemble (Tennessee! Pennsylvania! Ohio!).
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