Improving The Look Of Concrete

As a kid, you may have watched a cartoon with prehistoric cave people who used dinosaurs to accomplish just about everything. The main character, Fred Flinstone, worked for a mining and rock demolition company. With a dinosaur, you could easily demolish concrete whenever you wanted. However, it is not that easy anymore. Here are a few other ways to break up and remove concrete.

Jackhammer or Hydraulic Hammer

Both of these tools are essentially the same; they use an enormous, chisel-like tool to bust up concrete into chunks. The difference is that the hydraulic hammer is usually an attachment on the front end of a front loader construction truck. You can rent the jackhammer, but you will have to hire a concrete contractor to get close to the hydraulic hammer.

Explosives

A demolition expert that uses explosives is licensed to do so. He or she plans out where to set the explosives so that the concrete does not injure innocent passers-by when it goes off. This is the quickest, and most dangerous, method of smashing up concrete, and should only be done by a special contractor.

Hydraulic Concrete Pump

It seems strange that you could use more concrete to remove concrete, but you can. If you are attempting to break up and remove concrete, you can use the hydraulic concrete pump. This pump utilizes extreme pressure to inject liquid concrete underneath the slab and force it upward.

Rather than stopping at the point where the slab becomes level with the rest of the concrete around it, the pump continues to force the slab upward until a crew can secure it to the end of a crane and lift it off. Then the wet concrete that was injected underneath is cleared away. The process is repeated for any and all other slabs that need to be removed.

Dinosaur...er, Experienced Contractor

Well, no, not really; without Fred's dinosaurs around anymore, you cannot use such a creature to remove concrete. However, you can hire an experienced concrete demolition contractor to remove the concrete. That is almost as a good as a brontosaurus or brachiosaurus in Fred's day (if the cartoon were historically accurate).

Call around to find the contractor with enough experience for your specific needs. Arrange dates and times for the project to begin and end. Ask what options you have, then choose the one that the contractor recommends from the typical options listed above. Companies like National Concrete Cutting can help.