How to cut a concrete basement floor?

[VA_Joe]

I did something similar in my floor by using one of those wear type masonry cut-off wheels in my circular saw (home depot sells them for about $5 - I used up a few of them) to cut a shallow groove (one inch?) around the area that I needed to remove and then used an electric chipping hammer (rented from home depot for about $40 for a half day) to break up the concrete. The chipping hammer made fast work of the concrete (I finshed with the chipping hammer in about an hour or so). Have some bolt cutters handy to cut the steel mesh reinforcement. Good luck.


Joe

 

[Mike_C]

I had to do something similar, cut a trench through 30 feet of concrete. The abrasive blade in teh circular saw idea was never going to work, unless I bought 100 blades.

The solution was to rent an electric jack hammer for $50 / day.
I just kept punching holes next to each other then connected the dots. It worked well and was cheap enough. Sure, the edges were rough, but after filling it back in with new concrete and a skim coat on top noone would ever know.

 

[VA_Joe]

The only advantage of scoring the surface with the abrasive blade is that it keeps the cut neat (i.e. contains surface cracks/chipping). If you plan to put something on top of the floor (like a rug) then these won't be seen.

 

[Jeff396]

Well I got it done.....turned into a bit of a mini disaster. I ended up scoring the top about 1 1/2 inches deep with the masonry bit in the circular saw. That was a lot easier than I expected though I don't think the saw appreciated it too much. Then I rented a jack hammer from HD. I tried my best with the maul but it wasn't touching this stuff. Even the jack hammer wasn't going through it like I'd experienced when breaking up drives and walkways. I think this is the first time I've busted up that fiber reinforced cement. So I return the Jack Hammer and clean up which was no small job either. Now I cut the pipe that was pre plumbed under the floor which I want to tie into and re-direct to the basin. As I'm looking at it I wonder if my eyes are messing with me but it sure looks like the stub for the shower (up stream) is lower than the end I am going to tie into (down stream). I decided to pour some water in the toilet fitting and see what happened. Sure enough, all of the water ends up draining out of the shower pipe.......DOH!!!!!!! So now I have to head back to HD and rent the Jack Hammer again and buy another masonry blade so I can remove all of the pipes and completely reinstall them!!! All this because my moron builder decided, on his own, that I might want to put in a pool some day and moved the septic up the hill level with the first floor. Forget that the basement pre-plumbing was already set to have the septic on the basement level. Along with having a communicationally challenged builder it didn't help that we built this house from out of state and couldn't keep an eye on it like we usually do. I'm just sure glad it was pre-plumbed to save me some work not to mention the money! /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Oh, and I ended up using the 20" fan with a furnace filter taped over it idea. It seemed to work real well to grab some of the dust the shop vac with the drywall bag wasn't sucking up. Going to file that one away for future projects! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Jeff

 

[Jeff396]

Another pic.....

I suppose I could have re-plumbed it to go directly from the toilet to the basin but I didn't want to figure out how to change the venting.

 

[Jeff396]

Our Castle.

Thanks for all of the help and suggestions!!

Jeff

 

[Jagmandave]

Beautiful home!

I rented one of those electric jack hammers from Home Depot too, and was surprised how well it worked, I took out a 35 year old 20' X 20' patio that was some of the hardest concrete I've ever busted up!

 

[OKnewguy]

It sounds like things went well. Then can be alot of work. You got lucky that it was not super thick, I remodeled 2 bathrooms and had to move some drains around, in some area's the slab was over 1' thick. I guess they had leveled out the slab with the concrete, instead of leveling out the base.
Man that was work, I am not to happy in this pick, I was exhausted.
DAve

 

[Jeff396]

Well, I sure am glad mine wasn't that thick!!

Here's a few more pictures of my progress. Pipes are back in and ready to bury. I'm going to get the cement today and hopefully have it in over the weekend.

Jeff

 

[Jeff396]

and another.....