Removing concrete or cutting off ground stakes

[Louise Chambers]

I have a dear friend who is moving and has someone buying her martin homes, she cannot take them with her. Her problem is potential buyer wants the concrete around poles removed from the ground, or poles (make that ground stakes) cut off. Concrete removal, I suggested seeing if local landscaper/yard service company could do that. For cutting off ground stakes at ground level, what tool would do that? She has very nice systems, aluminum square poles come out but there are stakes in ground.
Any suggestions? She's in a time crunch so asked me to post for her, and relay suggestions.

[Mike Mack]

Hi Louise, just about any contractor should have whats called a "saws all" with a metal cutting blade. Real quick buck, just tell em cash.

[G Saner]

Hello Louise,

I had to take a ground stake out once. Since it was at a satellite site, I wanted everything gone and could not cut the stake off at ground level. Here is what I did.

With a sledge hammer, I first pounded the upper concrete to crack or weaken it. I then used the hammer to hit the ground stake right at the concrete line. I moved around and around the stake striking at on all four sides. Eventually, the concrete cracked and I applied more hammer strikes to the stake as low as possible. Then I tied a rock bar (Angelo bar, Texas toothpick) to the stake. One end of the bar was on the ground and I pushed up on the other end for leverage. The stake came right out and I pulled out the bigger pieces of concrete then filled the hole with dirt. Once the grass grew over the hole, there was no sign that a pole had ever been there.

The best thing was that the ground stake was undamaged and I have given it to another martin landlord.

Gary

[Louise Chambers]

thanks for these suggestions - I will pass them along to my friend!

[Spiderman]

In the future, it's always good to have the concrete stop 4" to 6"s below ground level, just for this reason.