How to Remove a Concrete Block Wall

How to Remove a Concrete Paver Planter

6/2/2021

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I have to be honest, I wasn't looking forward to this particular project. Yes, the planter needed to be removed, but it was going to be a lot of hot, hard work.

We managed with a little help and learned a few things along the way.

Read on and add your tips for concrete removal in the comments below.

Materials/Tools:

Truper 12 Lb. Splitting Maul with 27 in. Steel Handleim (Amazon)
Bulldog Xtreme 8 Amp 1 in. Corded Variable Speed SDS-Plus Concrete/Masonry Rotary Hammer Drill (Home Depot)
Bulldog Xtreme 1-1/2 in. x 10 in. SDS-Plus Hammer Steel Self-Sharpening Tile Chisel (Home Depot)
16 in. x 16 in. x 1.75 in. Pewter Square Concrete Step Stone (Home Depot)
9-Pound Steel Tamper with Hardwood Handle, 48-Inch (Amazon)
True Temper 1160300 Pencil Point San Angelo Digging Bar (Amazon)
0.5 cu. ft. Step 2 Paver Leveling Sand (Home Depot)
1 cu. ft. Top Soil (Home Depot)
0.5 cu. ft. Bagged Pea Gravel Pebbles (Home Depot)
WeedBlock Weed Barrier Landscape Fabric (Home Depot)
Keter 165-Gallon Resin Outdoor Deck Box (Amazon)
Keter 165-Gallon Resin Outdoor Deck Box(Sam’s Club)
Surebonder Construction Professional Grade Adhesive Hot Melt Glue Sticks (Amazon)

The concrete planter that needs to be removed.

This was a pretty useless eyesore in Steph's backyard plus it took up a lot of space! Steph used it for storage, but in actuality, it really became a haven for bugs and other creepy crawlies!

Using a Bosch rotary hammer with chisel tip to remove the concrete pavers.

We were lulled into a thinking this was going to be an easy job when we had great success removing the pavers with the rotary hammer. They came off fairly easy giving us hope the rest would be just as easy, but....

How do we remove the concrete blocks filled with concrete.

...then, after the first two layers came off, we found this! Concrete block filled with concrete. What we didn't discover until even later was the rebar that extended at least two feet into the ground. This was not going to be so easy after all!

Using a splitting maul to break up the concrete.

We brought in some muscle and he went to swinging a heavy splitting maul to break up the concrete.

Using a True Temper 1160300 Pencil Point San Angelo Digging Bar to dig out the rebar.

This Pencil Point Digging Bar was useful in helping to dig out all the buried rebar. It was slow work!

Using a splitting maul to break up the last of the planter.

Steph tried using the splitting maul on the remainder of the concrete planter.

Using a Makita reciprocating saw with metal cutting blade to cut the rebar.

Steph wasn't exactly successful at getting the rest out so she used a reciprocating saw with metal blades to cut off the exposed rebar to make the area safer until we could get it out.

We left the back wall in place. The area left was low so we bought bags of top soil and started to fill it in.

Using a tamper to level out the new top soil.

We watered in the top soil and tamped it down after each addition of soil.

Buying pea gravel at the Home Depot garden department.

Steph's backyard is nothing but pea gravel so we bought more to add to the newly opened up space. Back to Home Depot to buy a whole lot of pea gravel!

We bought some 16 inch pavers at the home depot.

We bought eight pavers as well.

We picked up a bag of leveling sand at the Home Depot as well.

As well as a bag of leveling sand.

We added a layer of landscape cloth before putting in the pea gravel. We used a rake to even it out.

Using a level and leveling sand to place the concrete stepping stone pavers.

Here Steph is leveling out the large pavers with leveling sand. This is where we are going to add an outdoor storage box.

The pavers from the planter were reused to finish the wall.

Steph reused the pavers we took off the planter to finish the wall. The pavers were hot glued into place with Surebonder construction adhesive.

The outdoor storage box fits nicely on the new step stone pad. The box is from Sam's Club (A USA based membership warehouse) and is the best price we found on a storage box of this size. It's easy to put together and holds a lot.

A view of the sams club storage box with lock.

Removing the old planter has certainly opened up space in the backyard. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it to finally get rid of it.

There was a lot of debris created from the removal. If you do something like this, you need to have a disposal plan in place. Fortunately, our city takes large trash every two weeks. So over a period of a few trash cycles, Steph has slowly been putting out the concrete and the city has taken it away.

What tips do you have for concrete removal? Please share in the comments.

Please note: This is not a sponsored post.

FYI: We are not professionals, and we don't claim to be. This is what we found worked for our project. Yours may need a little different approach. Safety first!

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