750' Concrete Driveway Demo/Refinish Help

[Millhouse]

We built on 12 acres that had an old 750' long concrete driveway that was poured at various times whenever the previous owner's friends had concrete waste they needed to dump.

The time is past due for us to address this monstrosity and we are trying to figure out options.

Because it's so rough with many cracks, we don't feel that asphalting over top is going to work, so we're likely stuck on demoing it. What we're not sure of is what to do with the waste. I'll likely be renting a skid steer with a jackhammer attachment to rip it all up. After that, we're not entirely sure.

Any suggestions?

 

[2manyrocks]

If it is cracked pretty through and through in small enough sections, you might be able to pop it up with the bucket without using the jackhammer. But with that much material, it would take a while to move it all to dispose of it without resorting to using a dump truck.

You need plan for where it needs to end up and then work out how to get it there.

 

[Millhouse]

If it is cracked pretty through and through in small enough sections, you might be able to pop it up with the bucket without using the jackhammer. But with that much material, it would take a while to move it all to dispose of it without resorting to using a dump truck.

You need plan for where it needs to end up and then work out how to get it there.

Yeah, dump trucks are going to be costly as well.

I'm curious if anyone has any experience with crushing attachments as it would be ideal to be able to re-use the concrete as a gravel.

 

[71bronco]

We have a lot of concrete recycling places around here.They grind it up for road base. If your area doesn't you need to find a construction landfill hopefully close by

 

[zzvyb6]

My concrete contractor hauls it back to the concrete company supply. They grind it up, separate the gravel, dirt, metal reinforcement, and reuse it. Came back mixed with fresh cement at a reduced price. Mine was 800' or driveway with all new barn & machinery building aprons. $72k.

 

[Millhouse]

My concrete contractor hauls it back to the concrete company supply. They grind it up, separate the gravel, dirt, metal reinforcement, and reuse it. Came back mixed with fresh cement at a reduced price. Mine was 800' or driveway with all new barn & machinery building aprons. $72k.

Yeah, that's about $62k more than I'd like to spend lol.

 

[ruffdog]

More than likely they went cheap on the base that supports the pavement too. The big decision will be if you continue to throw good money at a halfazzed job or do it right which will cost a bunch of cash. Maybe get the concrete removed first and get the gravel base done right and wait on paving for later?

 

[Millhouse]

More than likely they went cheap on the base that supports the pavement too. The big decision will be if you continue to throw good money at a halfazzed job or do it right which will cost a bunch of cash. Maybe get the concrete removed first and get the gravel base done right and wait on paving for later?

More than likely there is no base that supports the pavement.

The plan now is to remove it, re-grade where needed, put down some heavy duty geo fabric and bring in some crusher run. The ground underneath I'm sure is already thoroughly compacted...so I'm hoping to keep the grading at a minimum to avoid having to re-compact. If we decide to later on, we can asphalt.

The later steps are pretty straightforward, it's just the demo that I'm unfamiliar with.

 

[stumblinhorse]

Rent a skid steer and find a dump trailer. Shouldn’t need more than 8 hours rental. If you don’t want to or can’t haul away the pieces, then pile them up somewhere. Nothing special to break up a crappy concrete job. Just pick up chunks.

But take it from someone that always wants to recycle stuff. Don’t bother, get rid of it and move on. The pile of concrete will be there for years, because it will be cost prohibitive to crush it.

 

[MossRoad]

My father built several hundred feet of retaining walls, flower bed landscape wall, and a set of stairs 90' down an escarpment all from broken driveway and sidewalk pieces that he'd pick up at various locations.

The broken edges look very much like natural stone, and the flat sides stack neatly. He'd plant ivy on the walls and no one would know the difference if it was concrete or stone.

So that's one way to use broken concrete.

 

[MossRoad]

I pulled these from a google search, but it gives an idea of what his stuff would generally look like...

 

[Mud2Money]

This is one of the many things I do in excavating. We just did a concrete tear out 2 days ago. We use a Skidsteer with 8k forks mostly. Fork under a slab and lift it up. Drop and break any that needed to be smaller. We stack them and dump them into our dump truck. Lots of places take the concrete waste. Many around us take it for free.

Depending on water issues and soil structure (your climate to be more specific ). You should be able to re do the base fairly easy if you have a good grade around the drive that sheds water your in easy. We usually use crushed concrete as a base compacted very hard around 6” thick minimum. Concrete guys have been very happy with that and warranty their work. I live in good ol weather wild Michigan. So some methods differ.

 

[EddieWalker]

Do you already own a tractor with a loader? I'm all for renting, but if I already have something, that's what I'm going to use. In my experience, concrete breaks up pretty easy once you get that first piece in the air. Then you drop it and it breaks into smaller pieces that are easy to pick up with the loader bucket.

At my place, I like to use busted up concrete to fill in ditches and control erosion. I haven't done anywhere close to what you are doing, so it's going to take a lot longer, but like everything, you just put in the time and eventually it gets done.

I would be very happy to have that much concrete all piled up somewhere. I would use it when I needed it and hope the pile lasts a long time.

Now that I have goats, I've found that chunks of concrete work great for blocking holes under the fence that the baby goats work their way through. The little guys are very persistent at finding weak areas under the fences to the chicken area, and they really don't have anything better to do then try to get to the chickens food. One or two good sized pieces of broken up concrete work great for this. Unfortunately, it's a never ending war that the baby goats never give up on!!!

The farther you move any type of bulk material, the more expensive it gets. Find a place as close as you can to the road where it's not an eye sore, and pile it up there.

 

[ddbackhoe]

Rent a skid steer and find a dump trailer. Shouldn’t need more than 8 hours rental. If you don’t want to or can’t haul away the pieces, then pile them up somewhere. Nothing special to break up a crappy concrete job. Just pick up chunks.

But take it from someone that always wants to recycle stuff. Don’t bother, get rid of it and move on. The pile of concrete will be there for years, because it will be cost prohibitive to crush it.

You may want to crunch the numbers on that. 750 x 10 x 4“ will generate about 340,000 lbs of debris.

 

[stumblinhorse]

You may want to crunch the numbers on that. 750 x 10 x 4“ will generate about 340,000 lbs of debris.

Not sure what numbers you are referring to in my post. But nothing too controversial in what I said. 1 day rental to pile up concrete in a way to haul it out is doable for me. But I am told I am pretty fast…

 

[ruffdog]

You may want to crunch the numbers on that. 750 x 10 x 4“ will generate about 340,000 lbs of debris.

I'm thinking more like an excavator and dump trucks to get the slabs out, dig some of the base out, roll some 4" rock for some solid base, cover with crushed and roll again.

 

[workinonit]

If you use a jack hammer it will take twice as long. Double operation. A set of forks should be all you need to break it up and move it. Then maybe the bucket to finish the clean up.

 

[4570Man]

Bite the bullet and pay to bring in dump trucks and haul it out. Alternatively maybe hire a large excavator and dig a big hole and burry it. It’s going to be an eyesore any other way.

 

[ovrszd]

Bite the bullet and pay to bring in dump trucks and haul it out. Alternatively maybe hire a large excavator and dig a big hole and burry it. It’s going to be an eyesore any other way.

Around here the Dump Truck owner/operator will know someone that wants it. That person will pay the trucking. So all you gotta do is load it. I'd break it up and have it piled in several piles when the truck shows up. So he isn't waiting to get loaded.

 

[Mud2Money]

Trucking around me runs about $85-$105 a hour. I try to keep my round trips about 1-1.5 hours for site to dump/materials pit and back to site. 1200sqf was 3 loads in our tri axle dump with it broken up decent. On big pond jobs we usually sell off the excess to locals and everyone’s happy. Make a few phone calls to your local excavating companies. You might be in for a surprise. A lot of smaller shops also expand on using job wastes. Someone might haul it free.