Concrete patio demo

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