Post Footing Demolition
2005.07.30
According to the photo on an old listing of my house, there used to be a wheelchair ramp which came up the side of the house, then turned and tied into the front porch. When the house was remodeled before I bought it, they tore all of that out. However, they left the concrete footings around the posts for the ramp. Or at least, they left a couple of them near the side of the house, and a couple more in front of the front porch. In any event, I knew I needed to dig those out sometime before I come through and rototill, regrade, add topsoil, and plant new grass this fall.
So last night I went to Home Depot and bought a 4-pound sledgehammer, an 8-pound sledgehammer, and a concrete chisel. This morning I got out there with those tools, a bucket, and a shovel, and started hammering away.
I had no idea how far down they had poured the footings, but I imagined it would be two or three feet. As I kept hammering and chiseling and shoveling, I realized they weren’t actually that deep. So it wasn’t as bad as I had expected, and after about a half hour of work, maybe 45 minutes, I had the first one done.
Nate and Yuki (and their German shepherd Kodi) showed up a little later, and Nate helped me bang out the other three.
In about an hour and a half, we had the job wrapped up. In the photo showing us working on the ones in front of the house, you can see the sidewalk to nowhere. I believe that while the wheelchair ramp existed, there were steps up to the porch from this sidewalk. Now there are concrete steps up the side of the porch, and this bit of sidewalk is useless. I’d like to demolish that as well.
