Period Concrete Breaker

[malcolm]

I have a small concrete slab to break up. A few weeks later I will need to lay some new drains under a concrete floor, and at some point I really ought to dig up the existing drains to change them from uphill to downhill flow. Buying rather than hiring seems sensible for a concrete breaker.

Are the 240V 15kg things for about £150 any use at all? And if so could anyone recommend one?

 

[skier-hughes]

I borrowed one from a friend, and yes worked well. Titan from Screwfix. Wouldn't think it'd last long under commercial use, but great for occasional.

 

[jackpoint]

We bought a titan screwfix special and it's more than paid for itself, very much recommended

 

[88v8]

I have a Titan drill, and a jigsaw. Good old-fashioned no frills kit.

Ivor

 

[middi]

Unless you intend to use the concrete breaker on a regular basis you would be better off hiring a commercial heavy duty one for a couple of hours from a tool hire shop.

Middi

 

[Zebra]

Having done a bit of concrete breaking here, I would tend to agree with middi, because one which you buy might be the wrong size for certain applications, and therefore pointless. When demolishing the old porch I had to take a medium duty breaker back to the hire shop to get a bigger one, one of the upright ones they use to smash up the roads with, because the concrete was quite thick, and doing it with too small a breaker is ridiculously arduous and timeconsuming, chipping off a millimetre at a time, whereas doing it with one of the right size is easy peasy, and breaks it off in chunks the size of a dinner plate. So unless you got a huge one, then you could find that you wouldn't be saving yourself time or money at all.

 

[skier-hughes]

The titan one from screwfix Zebra is about the same size as a road breaker, just not as heavy duty as it's a DIYer's version.

 

[MatthewC]

A few years ago I broke up a small concrete slab using a sledge hammer - very quick and very satisfying! Quite cheap to buy but probably wouldn't cope well with a large floor though.

 

[jackpoint]

The titan breaker has so far done about 72m2 of four to six inch concrete and is still going strong
We thought £150 odd to own a breaker was fairly cheap but imagine it may struggle if your crete is more than six inches thick.

 

[Zebra]

I see. Well sounds like that's the thing then!

 

[malcolm]

The weather looked too iffy for greenhouse building this morning so I went to Screwfix and bought the £150 Titan. It was very effective on the parts of the slab that were 4 or 5 inches deep, but was hard work on the 7 inch bits. Managed the 8 foot square slab before lunchtime. I wish I had it last weekend when any amount of leverage wouldn't move some old concrete steps so I left them be and spent an afternoon making a fence post hole through them with the SDS chisel.

I've decided concrete breaking is one of those jobs I'd like to get someone else in to do in the future.

 

[CliffordPope]

I've just broken up a concrete ramp into a garage with a sledge hammer and a long breaker bar.

The secret I discovered is to give it a good thump in the middle to induce hairline cracks, then lever up one corner. It doesn't matter how much - a fraction of an inch will do. Wedge it up, then give a thump about two feet from the edge. As long as there is the tiniest bit of hollow under the slab it usually then cracks quite easily.

 

[Flyfisher]

A good technique, exploiting the weakness of concrete in tension, and one I've successfully used myself when taking up slabs - though I was fortunate to have a pretty good tool for lifting the slab in the first place . . .

 

[jackpoint]

HULK Smash puny concrete!