Cutting Concrete

Cutting a hole in the basement rebar concrete foundation walls of your house!

I hired someone (cost me $342) to do this - they bring out one BIG & HEAVY MONSTER concrete saw. There's a generator in the truck putting out a lotta amps to run it ... and the noise it makes is incredibly loud. The guy doing the work told me they do commercial concrete cutting which can be a lot thicker, but I was still pretty impressed with how well they cut a hole in my basement concrete foundation walls, which had metal rods/rebar, so there was some good spark action when it hit that. Once the cut were made, we pounded the crap out of it with a sledge - this was fun at first ... but then it was serious hard work. I hope I can "bury" these pieces ... but even after smashing 'em up some more so they were semi-manageable sizes, they were still very heavy; concrete is not too light! ;-)

The south facing basement wall ready to be cut

cutting concrete basement walls


The south facing basement wall with a 54" wide hole cut in it! Lotta sledge pounding to knock it out and get those pieces. The saw was water-cooled and sprayed mud everywhere, but I had tarped us in well. And the best part is the house didn't come tumbling down!

cutting concrete basement walls


The east facing basement wall showing existing hole that I dropped about a foot to be even with the south one. We ran into a lotta rebar on the original cut line, so we dropped it an inch.

cutting concrete basement walls


Sparks fly when you are concrete cutting

cutting concrete walls


This saw was really heavy ... and he's free-handing it!

But the cut was pretty darn straight
cutting concrete walls cutting concrete walls



Up the left side - that's gotta be heavy going up

Sparks fly as the saw hits rebar
cutting concrete walls cutting concrete walls



And now the right side

Don't cut those wires!
cutting concrete walls cutting concrete walls





I would not recommend cutting concrete unless you are trained professional! ;-)

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