How to Break Up a Concrete Driveway
- NZ Machine Hire
- 18 hours ago
- 5 min read
A concrete driveway looks like one problem. It's three.
Breaking it is the easy part. Handling it and getting rid of it is where the day goes, and where the budget goes with it.
The bit everyone underestimates
Driveways are exactly where services run. Power to the garage, water to the house, sometimes gas, and on older Auckland sections, things nobody recorded.
Lodge a free enquiry with beforeUdig and get the plans. Understand what that gives you: utility plans, not a physical locate. WorkSafe's guidance is to pair the plans with careful hand-dug trial holes until every service is found. If something might be shallow under the slab, expose it by hand before a breaker goes anywhere near it.
Also worth knowing before you start: a breaker will find a service by destroying it, and there's no warning.
Cut the edges before you break anything
If you're only removing part of the driveway, or if the slab runs up against a path, garage floor or kerb you're keeping, saw cut the line first. Breaking to an uncut edge gives you a ragged fracture that runs wherever it wants, usually into the part you were keeping.
A concrete saw cuts a clean line and gives the breaker somewhere to work to.
Cut wet. WorkSafe's guidance is that tools cutting or grinding concrete should feed water to the blade or use on-tool dust extraction, because dry cutting releases respirable crystalline silica. The particles are too fine to see and the lung damage they cause is permanent. Water on the blade is the control, and it is not optional.
What size machine do I need to break up a concrete driveway
Two things decide this: slab thickness and how much of it there is.
1.7 tonne with a breaker handles a standard residential driveway of 100mm unreinforced or lightly meshed concrete. The Kubota U17-3 and the Takeuchi TB217R both take a rock and concrete breaker, and both get through tight side access if the driveway wraps around the house.
2.5 tonne is the step up for thicker slabs, heavy mesh, or when you simply want it done faster. More breaker energy per blow, and the extra machine weight keeps it planted while the breaker works.
3.5 tonne and up for a commercial slab, reinforced concrete, or anything with real depth. Note these move by truck rather than trailer, which changes your transport cost. See the excavator range.
Not the 800kg. It's the right machine for tight backyards, but a breaker isn't listed among its attachments, and a micro digger doesn't have the weight behind it to work one properly.
The breaker is an attachment, so you're hiring the machine and adding it. The attachments page covers what's available and what fits.
What machine to hire
Stage | Machine | Notes |
Cutting the line | Wet cut only | |
Breaking | 1.7t digger plus breaker | 2.5t for thicker or reinforced slabs |
Loading | Grab bucket | Add to the same machine |
Moving on site | Only if the truck can't reach | |
Removal | Sized to your tonnage | |
Rebuilding the base | Size by area |
Rates exclude GST. A mandatory 8% Insurance Excess Fee applies to the hire subtotal, and 15% GST is calculated on hire, insurance and transport combined. Attachments and transport are charged separately. Ask for the whole figure when you book.
Diggers up to 2.5 tonne come on a trailer if you're collecting from the Rosedale yard. Anything larger moves by truck.
How to actually break it
Start at an edge or an existing crack, not in the middle. Concrete fails from a free edge, and hitting the centre of an intact slab mostly transfers energy into the ground.
Work back toward yourself in a line, breaking pieces small enough to lift with whatever you're loading with. This is the discipline that saves time. Oversized pieces feel like progress and then have to be broken again on the ground, which is slower than doing it right the first time.
If the slab is meshed, the pieces stay connected. You'll be cutting or pulling mesh as you go, and it's worth having bolt cutters on site.
Keep people clear. A breaker throws fragments, and it throws them further than you'd expect. Nobody stands in front of the machine, and windows, cars and the neighbour's fence want considering before you start.
Vibration and noise. This is a loud, sustained job. Neighbours are more forgiving when they were told the day before.
Moving it and getting rid of it
This stage is the one that gets skipped in the planning and then eats the weekend.
Loading. A grab bucket with a thumb picks up broken concrete properly instead of pushing it around. It's the difference between loading a truck in an hour and loading it in three.
Moving it on site. If the truck can't get to the slab, a tracked dumper shifts 800kg a trip through an 835mm gap. On a driveway job the truck usually can reach, which is one of the few things in your favour here.
Getting it off site. A tip truck is the practical answer at this volume. Ten tonnes is not a trailer job, and it's not several trips in a ute either.
Disposal. Clean concrete is usually accepted as cleanfill, which is cheaper than general waste, but only if it's genuinely clean. Mesh, reinforcing, soil and general rubbish mixed in can change the rate or the acceptance. Ring the site you're using, tell them what it is and how much, and get the price before you load. Disposal is charged by weight, and weight is the number you calculated at the start.
What you'll find underneath
Old driveways are often sitting on very little. When the concrete comes up you'll usually find the base course is thin, contaminated, or absent.
If you're relaying concrete or paving, that base needs sorting and compacting properly. Our plate compactor siz
e guide covers what size for the area, and the compactor range runs from a 60kg plate to 500kg reversible.
If the driveway is becoming lawn or garden, you're now looking at a different job. Preparing ground for a new lawn picks up from there.
And if the reason the driveway failed was water sitting under it, fix that before you pour anything new on top. Digging a drainage trench covers it.
Questions we get asked
How long does a driveway take?
A standard residential slab is usually a day for the breaking if the machine is the right size and someone is clearing as you go. Loading and carting is separate and often longer.
Can I do it with a jackhammer?
For a small patch, yes. For a driveway, you'll be there for days and your arms will give out before the concrete does.
Do I need a licence?
Not on residential or private property. Building sites may ask for proof of competence.
Is the concrete worth anything?
Clean concrete is generally accepted as cleanfill at a lower rate than general waste. It's a saving rather than a return.
What if there's reinforcing steel?
Expect it in anything commercial or newer. It slows the job, keeps the pieces joined, and needs cutting. Tell us when you book so we get the machine size right.
Ten tonnes of concrete doesn't move itself.
Tell us the driveway's dimensions and thickness and we'll work out the machine, the breaker and the truck.
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