I just demolished concrete in my back yard to install pavers. I think the costs will depend upon the amount and the disposal costs. Although I am not installing concrete, my contractor mentioned that he charges $8 per square foot to demo, dump and re-install concrete. I would think they would not even charge half of that for just demo.

The labor will always be the expensive part, and that is largely determined by access- can a small backhoe get in there or is it hand only? In my area we don’t have disposal fees for concrete because it gets recycled. You won’t know any of this until you start getting quotes. Ask for references on next door or your Facebook neighborhood group. I had my work done by a landscaping company

In my younger days, a friend, myself, my husband and my brother demolished and removed a 60' concrete driveway manually using a sledge and pry bars. We opted not to rent a jackhammer as we wanted the chunks in usably large pieces to recycle into several other landscaping projects. 4, 3/4 ton pickup loads :-)

So if you have the desire, intent and the ability, it can be a completely DIY project.

How did you reuse it, gardengal? Finding buried chunks of concrete is ths Bain if my existence. I’d love a project that reused it.

Most of it went into two major hardscaping jobs.....one for a client and one for me.

Mine was pretty simple.....just a wide walkway from my front gate through the garden to my front door (with a couple of narrower paths off to both sides) with one area enlarged enough to include a sitting area/room for a bench.

The client project was larger and more complicated. A heavily wooded, very steep lot that had no real access to the front "garden". We created steps along a semicircular retaining wall planter, also out of the concrete chunks, down to a flat patio area that became a stage for a piece of yard sculpture once completed. That was about 25 years ago or so and is still 100% functional.

I also had the contractor I now work with build a similar concrete chunk patio area off a large deck at a previous residence of mine, again on a very steeply sloped property. But I didn't have a spare driveway to break up so he had to suss out a concrete source, which he did successfully. Since the concrete was free for the taking, it put a major dent in the materials cost of this project.

Do you use the chunks as filler, adding fresh concrete to create the desired form? Or piece them together like puzzle pieces? I’m fascinated.

Yes, I used them like flagstones as well. Fine gravel in between and I allowed some plants to self seed in the spaces. Kinda like fitting a jigsaw puzzle together.