Concrete demolition, priced by weight, not by area

What is concrete demolition?

Concrete demolition is the breaking out, loading and disposal of an existing slab, footing, wall or steps. Unlike most concrete work it is priced by weight and access rather than by area: heavily reinforced or unusually thick concrete takes far longer to break and cut, and a back garden a machine cannot reach turns a one-day job into several. Utility locates come before any of it.

Signs you need concrete demolition

• A driveway, patio or walkway is being replaced and the existing slab cannot stay
• The slab has broken up beyond any sensible repair or lifting
• You are converting hardscape back to lawn, planting beds or a different surface
• A structure is being removed - steps, a stoop, an old shed pad, a redundant footing
• A service line, drain or foundation repair needs access through concrete
• An old slab is sitting where an addition or a garage is going
• A pool surround or deck is being removed as part of a larger project

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How concrete demolition actually works

1. 1

   Utility locates, before anything else

   Buried services are located and marked before breaking starts. Gas, water, sewer, electric and communications lines run under and beside driveways and patios more often than people expect.

   Watch forA crew arriving to break concrete with no marks on the ground. Locates take time to arrange and are not optional. A contractor treating them as a formality is a contractor you do not want operating a breaker over your gas service.

2. 2

   Assessing thickness, reinforcement and what is underneath

   A core or an edge inspection tells the crew how thick the slab is and whether it holds mesh, rebar or, in older work, nothing at all. Reinforcement is the single biggest driver of how long breakout takes.

   Watch forA price quoted purely on square footage with no one having looked at an edge. Heavily reinforced concrete has to be cut as well as broken, and that difference is where change orders come from.

3. 3

   Planning access and protection

   The route for the machine and for the debris is planned, and lawn, driveway edges, fences and services along it are protected. Where a machine cannot reach, the work becomes hand-breaking and barrowing.

   Watch forNo plan for the route across the lawn. A tracked machine and loaded barrows leave ruts and compact soil, and repairing that afterwards is a cost nobody quoted.

4. 4

   Saw cutting the boundary

   Where only part of a slab is coming out, the line is saw cut first so the concrete that stays has a clean, square edge rather than a ragged broken one.

   Watch forBreaking to a line without cutting it. The break wanders under the remaining slab, undermines it, and the new pour then has a poor edge to butt against.

5. 5

   Breaking out

   A hydraulic breaker on an excavator, or handheld breakers on smaller or access-restricted work, reduces the slab to liftable pieces. Reinforcement is cut as it is exposed.

   Watch forDry cutting and breaking with no water suppression or extraction. Concrete dust contains crystalline silica, and this is the dustiest operation in the trade.

6. 6

   Loading, hauling and disposal

   Material is loaded into a truck or container. Clean concrete can often go to a recycling facility to be crushed for aggregate, which is usually cheaper than landfill and better than it.

   Watch forContainer weight limits. Concrete fills a container by weight long before it fills it by volume, and an overweight container is either refused or charged as an overage.

7. 7

   Grading and handover

   The exposed subgrade is graded and, where a new slab is coming, left ready for base material. Where the area is going back to lawn, it needs topsoil rather than the compacted fill left behind.

   Watch forA hole left full of broken fragments and compacted rubble under future planting. Nothing grows in that, and removing it later is a second job.

What does concrete demolition cost?

Demolition is normally quoted per square foot plus disposal, but reinforcement, slab thickness and machine access move the number more than area does. Recycling clean concrete is often cheaper than landfill. Hand demolition in an inaccessible yard costs considerably more. See the Cost Guide.

See the full concrete demolition cost guide - by material, size and region →

If the number is the problem, here are the ways people pay for it →