There's Always a Bigger Hammer - The Paving Stone Demolition Experiment

'm trying to remove the cemented-in mystery stone from our pool deck. The same stuff is on our patio, so if I'm successful, I may go after that area too. Why would I do that? Cause it's ugly, bad stuff.

You can read about this delightful stone in my last post about our upcoming swimming pool renovation if you like, or you can stay here for the hard-core, hammer-slammin' action.

To update progress on the renovation, I've had two pool contractors give renovation options and quotes for a total pool re-do / repair. The first contractor thought we could remove the mystery stone from the original deck, and cover it with brick pavers. The second promoted jack-hammering the deck down to dirt and starting from scratch, with a new acrylic coated concrete cool-deck.

We're considering both approaches, but the paver idea hinges on successfully removing the stone, and they want $2,000 to do that.

Just to remove the stone, not to buy or install the pavers. Holy crap!

 I decided to see if I could do it myself. I didn't think I had the proper tools for this operation, but a test run with what I had, could determine if it could be done at all. Of course, this job was too big for Sweetness, my trusty electrician's hammer, so I upgraded to a mini sledge and a mason's chisel. I'd used the duo years ago, to split bricks for a mailbox project. I figured they should at least get me started with the necessary destructive experiment.

Mini-Sledge and a Mason's Chisel

It was easy enough to chip the concrete off the edges of the original deck slab, but it was seriously tough going to get the stones to release. I had to chip along as much of the edge as I could, before driving the chisel under the stone. Finally, I'd give it a few solid whacks to break it free.

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"tink,..tink,.tink,..tink..crack..."

After a while, I got a small area cleared. A few stones were up, broken to bits, but there was some concrete bedding left behind. It probably wasn't the best hammer and chisel combination to be using, but it proved that the stone could be removed. It would only take a "short" 3 years of solid evening and weekend work to plink my way through all of it. 

I chose to move up a level in hammer options. Tucked in my arsenal of hand-held concussive forces is Mjölnir, my mightiest hammer option. It is truly a hammer worthy of a Norse God, and it came to my possession through a character of mythological proportions, and I can't believe it's not been featured on this blog yet. 

Mjölnir, next to a mere mortal's hammer.

Mjölnir is actually a weathered, full-size sledge hammer with its handle sawn off for one-handed use. It was given to me years ago in my brief tenure as a construction worker, by Joseph, a foul-tempered Lebanese construction electrician, with muscled, fur-covered forearms the size of gallon paint cans. He was an intense, scary dude, physically incapable of rendering a single sentence without at least four curse words. In fact, sometimes his sentences were artistically woven entirely from curse words. For some reason, he liked me and let me keep this bastardized sledge. I think he wanted to craft a larger one for his own use. I don't know why; he could slam an eight foot grounding rod all the way into the ground as fast as you or I could push a thumbtack into a bulletin board.

Just like the God of Thunder, eh?

Mjölnir does its job. It hit with a tremendous impact, driving the chisel under the stone with only a few swings. It was horribly unwieldy though. Swinging a full-size sledge with one hand is a little more intense than swinging a tack hammer. I even managed to treat myself to a ricochet shot that slammed the mighty hammer into my foot, nearly knocking me over. It didn't hurt a bit at all though. It didn't hurt because I am one tough DIY'ing action hero of a man,... who just happened to be wearing steel-toe boots.

Steel-shod toes are happy toes.

I proved it was possible to remove the stone with a chisel and hammer, even a big damn hammer, but it was slow going and tough work. It physically wore me out. I thought perhaps I needed a better chisel, so I called it a day.

I had muscle aches on top of muscle aches the next morning. I'm out of shape for sure, but swinging an overweight hand-sledge in a crouched over position for hours and hours, days and days was going to be miserable. I clearly needed a better setup.  Luckily, I'd won a Home Depot gift certificate at work and it was positively straining to free itself from my wallet. I headed over to my friendly neighborhood, big orange box store to check out the tools,... and visit Bad Dogs in the parking lot, of course.

Naturally, I came home with a new power tool. Enter a big hammer drill, featuring 2.1 foot pounds of impact, 4,500 beats per minute. That's a pinch better than I can do by a hand. This bad boy is a beefy Makita HR2621 1" Rotary Hammer, with anti-vibration technology.  A new self-sharpening SDS plus chisel bit came home with it.

An example of a well chiseled physique.

Unlike my 1/2 inch cordless hammer drill, this roto-hammer has a third setting:

1. Drill Only - spinning for standard drilling through wood, etc.
2. Hammer Drill - spinning, plus impacts, for drilling through masonry
3. Hammer Only - the chuck does not spin at all, for chipping /digging, etc.

For this adventure, it was hammer only mode, the setting my cordless hammer-drill does not have.

Stop. It's Hammer Time.

Ohhh, hell yeah. This thing rippped up the "mortar bed" (?) of concrete the stones had set in much faster than the ol' hammer, chisel, and brute force I had been using. Unfortunately, it still took forever to pop the full size stones off, but it did it with a lot less effort. My visions or ripping through like a bulldozer, sadly, did not come close to reality. It was still slow going.

I switched to a stance I've learned from every single movie and TV show I have ever seen set in the streets of New York City, "jack hammering construction worker."  I believe all aspiring, male actors in the city get their start in this role, well either that or "construction guy eating a sandwich, next to jack-hammering construction worker." 

Either way, it was fun. It did make it easy to chip a few inches from the edge, fairly quickly.Still slow going, but again, less effort than swinging an oversize hand sledge.  I even began thinking about a sandwich myself (I could totally nail that acting thing). 

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The "Construction worker with a jack-hammer" stance.

A friend at work had given me another idea to try. He'd thought that I should use a masonry blade in a circular saw to slice the top layer into pieces that would be easier to pop off. Maybe that would help. Of course, I didn't have a masonry blade on hand for the circular saw. I did, however, have a diamond blade mounted in my Cordless Cutoff Tool 

It slices! It dices! It can even cut a tomato!

I did a decent sized section, but it really chewed through my batteries in the process. I guess the cheap blade and the heavy resistance of cutting a 3/4" thick stone and concrete really put a draw on the power. I emptied all three batteries. I had one on the charger as I tried whacking again with the big sledge and chisel, thinking I could simply pop the squares I had cut out. It was a little better.

That quickly led me to try sitting on the diving board breathing hard and drinking vitamin water, which worked nicely for me, but didn't accomplish any actual work.

Success at last!

The roto-hammer, made short work of it. I finally had the winning approach. The problem was, I couldn't charge batteries in the cut off tool fast enough to keep up with the cuts I needed. I'd need also to make more cuts to get the pieces to the best size. 

In the end, it wouldn't be a problem, because fate had taken me by the hand and led me to the solution. Let me take you back in time to my the shopping trip, when I was literally standing in the checkout line of Home Depot with this:

After a few moments, the lady at the Pro Checkout called me over to her station, with no waiting in her line. As I walked over, I saw this:

Waszzat? A grinder included?

A speedy check of online reviews later and I'd added the first two Makita tools to my arsenal. At the time, I didn't know I'd want a grinder for this project. Sure, I've wanted one for a while, but "free" really closed the deal for me.

I switched the blade over from the cordless, and let this bad dog run free. With an inexhaustible supply of electricity and a much higher RPM, it tore through stone, rendering it into flying dust.

"All we are is dust in the wind,..dude."

                                                    -Bill and Ted

This was an easy tool to use, especially considering the incredible amount of work it does without much muscle power. It cut stone and concrete with almost no effort. I really like the second handle to keep it under control and prevent it from tasting human flesh. Its going to be active on lots of future projects around here. 

I cut a grid-like pattern on both sides of the diving board, taking care not to cut too deep and damage the slab below. In hind-site, I think I'd make a good dentist. This is pretty much what they do right?

I had finally, finally arrived at a good demolition solution. I'd cut the grid roughly into 6 inch squares. The roto-hammer slid right under the corners at a low angle. Within just few seconds, I could hear the sound change and the "tile" would pop up, usually in two pieces. 

It was way easier than the sledge hammer approach. Still it was hot work. I really wanted to jump in that pool.

After a quick clean-up the deck was exposed. There was still a fair amount of mortar, but it could be cleaned up later if we decide to go this route. I figure I'd chip up the high spots with the roto-hammer and then get one of those cup grinding-wheels to clean up whatever was left. It can be done.

With the final process discovered, I think I can at least get the stone up in a couple weekends. But, for now, I'm going to stop, until we decide if we are going to resurface this with pavers or a coating or if we are going to have the entire deck demolished.

That I'm not going to do. Sure, I could get my hands on an electric jack-hammer and bust it up, but I don't have the expertise to avoid damaging any underlying structure that may need to stay intact. Plus, that is a lot of material to cart to the dump. 

For now, I have this little heap. I'll smuggle a little out each week in the trash if I have to.

The Next Big Thing - Swimming Pool Renovation

Necessity has once again led us to fail in keeping to our Strategic Doctrine of Inside-Out Home Renovation. The swimming pool continues to be unusable. First world problems right?

Wrong.

Access to a swimming pool is a requirement here in the fierce desert southwest. In fact, when you get off an airplane, they check your luggage, just to make sure you have your suit with you. The Border Patrol prowls the edges of the state, making sure anyone attempting to enter without towels, inflatable float toys, squirt guns, and a pair of swim goggles is promptly sent back the other direction. God forbid you try to bring children here in the summer without intending to routinely hurl them into the cool, refreshing embrace of a sparkling, chlorinated aquatic wonder at least once a day.

Whist most of the country is emerging, bleary-eyed, from their winter hibernation homes, blinking at the sunlight like pale zombies, basking in temperatures approaching 60 degrees, we're eyeballing the pool, with temperatures already tickling the low 90's. Oh, it's time.

Here's our issue. Our basic tract home was built in the late Classic Rock era, in 1979. We believe the pool was put in at that time, with a cassette tape of Pink Floyd's The Wall blaring on the boom box as the hole was dug. Approaching 40 years later, time and idiocy have taken their toll on the ol' swimmin' hole in our back yard.

I did win the battle of Dagobah, where the pool was regularly turning into a fetid swamp of yellow and green algae; we installed a new cartridge filter, an energy efficient pump, and a high-tech salt water chlorination cell. I can keep the water clear, so that is battle is indeed won. Unfortunately, the overall war has been lost. Black algae, the supreme force of the dark-side has taken over. Despite my efforts, it has multiplied and cannot be eradicated. It's a rock-hard bastard. with its tendrils sunk deep within the porous, aged pool walls. The pool itself is starting to disintegrate and the decking is a mess. I surrender.

Black algae. The bastard of the deep. Once you have it, you have it for good.

The white plastered finish is really only supposed to last about 10 years or so. This is in such bad shape that we think it my be original, or perhaps a late 1980's application. It was bad when we bought it, and we've been here 9 years. It's no longer smooth, but pitted and chipping away.

I found that Sylvan Pools  isn't even in business anymore.

That's not all folks. The pool deck is a big problem. If we're going to fix the inside, it only makes sense to fix the deck too. As you may have noticed, some previous owner / mental giant who was my DIY predecessor around here, decided to cover the "cool deck" with a not-so-cool-deck. They cemented some sort of porous stone over the original, professionally installed deck.

Fugly. Just plain fugly.

This mystery stone, has exciting benefits:

• It looks like it shouldn't be slippery, but it is.
• Also unlike Cool-Deck, it's actually so freaking hot that you can fry an egg on it in the summertime. Of course eggs are so much more susceptible than tender, bare human feet. Conversations that take place as we approach our pool for a swim normally start like this, "Ouch! ouch! ouch! ouch! (SPLASH!)" 
• It's not the stone's fault, but it's poorly installed. There are surprise trip hazards, weird uneven edges, and as an bonus feature, it slopes towards the house so water can pool there. You know how great it is for a house to have water wicking into wooden walls. This slope also offers the excitement of pooling water near the egress gate, just to ensure exiting is a slippery challenge.

My wife even slipped trying to go though the pool gate recently. She was wearing tennis shoes, but still lost her footing. She caught herself, but cut her hand on the latch.

This mystery stone is even wrapped over the edge of the pool. Just like the walking surface, it's poorly done. Like our roof, it's likely the product of weekend warrior DIY'ers like myself, but also under the effect of gallons of cheap beer.

Just a sharp enough edge to avoid bruising by splitting the skin. Handy.

I know there's some semblance of an original deck below this covering. I can see it at various points on the outside edge. It's sort of an orangey-pinkish color. 

Another item is the diving board. We use it; we love it. But, it's probably a death trap. Diving pools are rare around here, most new installs are shallow "play pools". Our pool is really too small for proper diving, even though it is ten feet at its deepest. It's fairly old. The fiberglass creaks and the base is loose and rusting.

We'll miss it, but it's best to get the liability out of our yard. The last thing we need is someone getting hurt on it. It's been almost a year, but I'm confident I can still produce a proper cannon ball, even without a diving board.

C' Ballin' like a Boss.

Like a Boss.

We really don't have the funds ready to take on this project right now, but it's only going to get more expensive as it degrades. Plus, the pool is a huge part of our summer cooling and entertainment around here. So much for a kitchen remodel this year, We're going to have to figure it out. I'm starting by bringing in the experts for ideas and price quotations. That's right, it looks like we're going to hire a pro for most of this. We've done it before. From my research, a lot of this is best done at the same time, saving tons of money in re-work and preventing possible damage to whatever was done first.

Pool Interior:

1. Get rid of the black algae for good. Is that an acid wash thing?
2. Repairing or resurfacing. There may be some sort of coating available. Perhaps it's a tear out and replacement with the same white "plaster" coating, or maybe we'll try some of the pebble finish products.
3. We're going to get information about replacing the water-line tile that's calcified, and ugly. 
4. Perhaps an auto leveling device can be added. These widgets keep the pool full when the summer is evaporating the water at an unbelievable rate.

Pool Exterior:

1. Pool Deck. It needs to be fixed so it's not so hot and slippery to walk on. It's a hazard and it's hideous looking.
2. Remove the diving board. We thought a slide would be fun, but we can't have anything visible above the fence line that will block the neighbor's view of the mountain.
3. Landscaping / entertainment features. We'd like to add some furniture, an umbrella stand, and who knows what else to beautify this stark area. We need some good lighting for evening swimming as well. 
4. Equipment Screen. We need to come up with some kind of screen to hide the mechanical equipment. Not only is it kind of an eyesore, but it needs to be protected from the sun.

A gorgeous piece of landscaping art, right?

I'm ready to dive in to this project. The patio roof is about cave-in too, so I think I'm going to be on outdoor project mode for a bit, just in time for triple digit temperatures,   too. 

I get that many of my dear readers don't have giant money sponges swimming pools, but this project should still be chock full of fun. I'm hoping to put some hand's on sweat equity into the project to get the cost down.