Remove very old concrete posts

amerste

How many panels/posts are you replacing? I know if the council put them in there will be loads of concrete surrounding those posts. Start with a cut off panel ( which is easy to do or have it made to size) making your 1st hole easier digging, then finish off with a cut down panel. Smash the original concrete post with a sledge/lump hammer down to ground level, there will be iron rods running through which will bend and break but a hack saw will cut them. This will save lots of time trying to remove. Your other option is to hire a breaker but that's hard work and time consuming. If you need more information on how to cut a panel down to size just ask.

bretts

They are 2.8 meters apart from each other and there are 12 of those.

getmore4less

If they are still in decent knick sound like they could stay for another 100 years.

Drill through and bolt the new posts to the old ones.
depending on the type of fence you want either to the side or in front.

The time you save you can make custom panels to fit the post widths or build a proper close board fence with arris rails.

Making panels/building the fence much less back breaking work than trying to get them out.

on the three sides of my garden the proper fence at the bottom is still standing 20+ years the panel fences have had every post(70mm) go at least once and most panels have needed work.

bretts

In that case would I not have to dig in next to the original panels which means going through the concrete again, each panel has about 30cm concrete to each side on the footing, its just too much.

getmore4less

Not sure I understand what you are dealing with.

I am suggesting drill through the posts and bold together then close panel your side to hide everything

dominoman

Need a picture please.

I_have_spoken

I took out just one concrete post (for a washing line) and it was a heck of a job even with SDS drill on hammer. You end up driving the concrete into the ground, which absorbs the 'hit'.

For 12 posts, I'd hire a hydraulic post-puller. NB the post and the 'lump' of concrete are also extremely heavy, so getting them out of an enclosed back garden will be a bar-steward of a job in itself.



The approach of rawl-bolting hangers for arris rails onto the existing posts, then featherboarding sounds far better IMHO

PasturesNew

I had a fella dig out some minor/fairly new concrete bits about 2' underground the other week - he used a mini Kangol hammer sort of thing. A portable/shortish one. It didn't take much, not relentless noise for 10 minutes or anything like ... I hardly noticed the noise, I wasn't timing it (didn't realise there'd be a test at the end) ... but I'd guess a few blasts of 10 seconds apiece, say 3-4x per post. A big/older one would probably just take more short blasts so I might allow 10 minutes max to destroy one. Then scoop it out with your hands as it's just all small chunks.

prosaver

getmore4less wrote: »

If they are still in decent knick sound like they could stay for another 100 years.

Drill through and bolt the new posts to the old ones.
depending on the type of fence you want either to the side or in front.

The time you save you can make custom panels to fit the post widths or build a proper close board fence with arris rails.

Making panels/building the fence much less back breaking work than trying to get them out.

on the three sides of my garden the proper fence at the bottom is still standing 20+ years the panel fences have had every post(70mm) go at least once and most panels have needed work.

thats what we did too

kev25v6

The posts in my garden had a full cement mixer of concrete holding each one in. It left a massive hole to refil to secure the new fence posts.