Break it out and take it away.
Concrete removal in the Bronx: driveways, patios, walkways, steps, slabs and footings.
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What concrete removal involves
Concrete removal is breaking out a slab or structure and getting the material off your property. It sounds like the simplest thing we do, and the part that catches people out is always the same: weight, access and what is underneath.
A four inch residential slab runs to well over a ton for a small patio, and a driveway is several times that. It has to be broken to a size that can be carried or loaded, and it has to leave in something rated to take it. That is the whole problem, and it is why the price turns on how close a machine and a truck can get.
What this covers
- Driveways, parking pads and aprons
- Patios, walkways, paths and yard slabs
- Front and rear steps, stoops and landings
- Interior slabs on grade, and slab sections inside a gut out
- Footings, pads and small foundations
- Retaining and garden walls in concrete or block
- Saw-cutting a clean line where the concrete that stays meets the concrete that goes
Removal, not replacement
We break out and remove.
If your project ends in new concrete, you want a concrete contractor, and you may want us first to clear the old surface. We will tell you plainly which one your job needs, and we would rather do that on the phone than after a visit.
What decides the price
Square footage is the number people lead with, and it is rarely the one that matters most.
- Access
How close a machine can get
An open driveway a machine drives onto is a different job from a rear yard reached through a three foot side gate. Where a machine cannot reach we break by hand and carry out, which changes the time and the cost. Tell us the route in, including gate widths and any steps.
- Thickness
And what is in it
Four inches of plain residential slab breaks predictably. Six or eight inches, wire mesh, rebar, or an old slab poured over an older one all slow it down. We can usually tell from an edge or a core what we are dealing with.
- What is underneath
Usually something
We know what tends to sit under a Bronx yard slab: an abandoned oil line, a drain run, a buried footing from a structure that came down decades ago. We check before breaking, work around anything live, and tell you what we find.
- Haul distance
Where the truck can sit
Broken concrete is dense. This is one of the few jobs where the distance from the break-out area to the truck genuinely moves the price.
What you get back
The concrete gone, the material hauled off, and the ground underneath graded level and workable. If the area is going back to soil, planting or gravel, we leave the sub-base ready for it. If it is being repoured, we leave a clean cut edge and a sound base for the next trade.
Anything you asked us to keep, such as a boundary wall, a step or a section of path, is still there and undamaged.
What to tell us
- Roughly how big the area is, in feet or in car-lengths
- What it is: driveway, patio, path, steps, interior slab
- Whether all of it is going, or a defined part
- How a machine would reach it, and gate widths if it is round the back
- Anything you know is under it
- What you want the ground to be like when we leave
That is enough for a real number on most residential jobs.
Questions
Do you replace the concrete after removing it?
No. We break out and remove concrete and leave the sub-base graded and workable. Pouring, resurfacing and sidewalk replacement are a separate trade, and if you need that we will tell you what the site will need so you can line it up.
Can you remove part of a slab and leave the rest?
Yes. We saw-cut a clean line first so the concrete that stays has a straight, sound edge rather than a fractured one. Say where you want the line and we will tell you whether it works.
What about what is underneath?
Old slabs often sit over utilities, drainage or an older surface nobody remembers. We check before breaking and work around anything live. Tell us what you know is under there when you call.
Can you take out a garage floor or a shed base?
Yes, and both are common here. A garage floor is usually reached straight off the driveway, which keeps it simple. A shed base at the back of a lot depends on the side passage, so tell us the gate width and whether there are steps on the way through.
Do you need machine access?
For anything more than a small area, yes. A machine with a breaker is faster and tidier than hand-breaking. Tell us how a machine would reach the area, including gate widths and what it would cross to get there.