On my first BUD I tried salvaging at least 5 ft of the post by cutting it off at the ground. Unfortunately, I didn't bring enough sawsall blades and gave up when it became appearant that I couldn't finish it. The old guy agreed that I should leave it since he could but a bird house on top.
The second BUD was just down the road, in the corner of a hay field. I have tractor with both a small backhoe and/or a post hole digger. The backhoe is a bitch to install and the post hole auger was already mounted. So I drove over and drilled about 4-5 holes around the concret clump, as deep as the auger would go. It still took a lot of effort to get it out of the ground and no wonder. There was more pipe in the ground than above and the hole having been hand dug the concrete clump was about 24" in dia. in some places. I had to go back today with some rigging gear to load and secure it in the front loader of the tractor.
Since my auger is only 8" I couldn't just "replant" the post, even if I rented a larger auger. I was thinking to salvage the upper 5' of 3" IPS (or as some call it 3 1/2" od) pipe. However, went scrounging the scrap yard yesterday and only could score a 5' piece and that cost $.50/lb. being extra heavy, it cost me $17 bucks (35lbs.).
Before I started sawing off the upper piece, I got out my sledge hammer and took a couple swings. It was solid but as I worked from the edge I could knock of pieces the size of my hand. Next I got out my faithful H/F hammer drill. I started drilling a row of holes about 1.5" apart. Each row 45 degrees apart. I then cleaned out the web between about 3 holes for my log splitting wedge. A couple swings of the sledge hammer and it was quartered, right down to the pipe. The rest came off with the second split. Took a couple hours to drill all those hole. (1/2" dia works best so the wedge seats early)
I guess I could have purchase the pipe (scrap) cheaper, if my time was worth anything, but it can take month of scrounging to find what I need.
Now all I have to do is find some place to dump the concrete pieces.
Here are a couple pictures of the post, after demolition.
Not a bad couple hour work (I'll be 72 tomorrow
)
Steve
The second BUD was just down the road, in the corner of a hay field. I have tractor with both a small backhoe and/or a post hole digger. The backhoe is a bitch to install and the post hole auger was already mounted. So I drove over and drilled about 4-5 holes around the concret clump, as deep as the auger would go. It still took a lot of effort to get it out of the ground and no wonder. There was more pipe in the ground than above and the hole having been hand dug the concrete clump was about 24" in dia. in some places. I had to go back today with some rigging gear to load and secure it in the front loader of the tractor.
Since my auger is only 8" I couldn't just "replant" the post, even if I rented a larger auger. I was thinking to salvage the upper 5' of 3" IPS (or as some call it 3 1/2" od) pipe. However, went scrounging the scrap yard yesterday and only could score a 5' piece and that cost $.50/lb. being extra heavy, it cost me $17 bucks (35lbs.).
Before I started sawing off the upper piece, I got out my sledge hammer and took a couple swings. It was solid but as I worked from the edge I could knock of pieces the size of my hand. Next I got out my faithful H/F hammer drill. I started drilling a row of holes about 1.5" apart. Each row 45 degrees apart. I then cleaned out the web between about 3 holes for my log splitting wedge. A couple swings of the sledge hammer and it was quartered, right down to the pipe. The rest came off with the second split. Took a couple hours to drill all those hole. (1/2" dia works best so the wedge seats early)
I guess I could have purchase the pipe (scrap) cheaper, if my time was worth anything, but it can take month of scrounging to find what I need.
Now all I have to do is find some place to dump the concrete pieces.
Here are a couple pictures of the post, after demolition.
Not a bad couple hour work (I'll be 72 tomorrow
)Steve
