Cutting Down A Concrete Pier

Greg Di

I'm doing a job now where my landscaper kind of screwed me by telling me he'd work around the height of my concrete piers with his pavers. Long story short, I have the deck built more or less and now he want's me to cut 6" off the tops of the 12" piers to permit the pavers to run over the tops of the piers.

I'm not looking forward to this one bit. I called a concrete cutting outfit who told me $500 to cut 8 of them. I still have temp support the whole deck AND reinstall new posts. I'm looking at $2000 by the time I'm done.

Any suggestions to do this more economically?

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neolitic

Get the landscaper to kick in
half for being a weasel?

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Chris Johnson

The smart ass answer is to put landscape plants around the column bases, it's easiest and cheapest.

Rent a concrete chainsaw and cut yourself, not much cheaper then the $ 500.00 mind you

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Chris

dkillianjr

Yup I agree with Chris, just rent the saw and do it yourself.


Dave

Greg Di

Uh, yeah...This guy has no concept of detail. I had him come to the site to tell me the height of his pavers and he couldn't be accurate.

I may lean on him a bit, but part of it was my fault. I should have made the footings stick out of the ground less than I did, but because he said "don't worry about it", I didn't.

I was told a gas concrete chain saw would not do this job properly.

The 4x4 posts are getting Fypon wraps so maybe I can figure out a way to do some simple stone work around the footings to cover the concrete.

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neolitic

That's the ticket, give him the idea
and let him pretty it up with stone
or pavers.
Maybe he'll be a little more detail
oriented next time.

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deckman22

Seems like his problem not yours, let him work it out. No way I'm gonna spend 2 grand cause some halfwit can't figure the height of his pavers right.

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Bone Saw

ditto that

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concretemasonry

Putting concrete pavers partially on the compacted soil base and partly on the pier is wrong and sound like it is a hack job. Did the owner decide abou changing things late?

A professional hardscaper would lay the pavers up to the pier and trim the pavers for a finished appearance.

If what he proposes is done, any settlement/movement in the base will be magnified and be ugly since the pavers on the pier will not settle.

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Dick

Engineer, designer and consultant recently active domestically and internationally on construction and design in about 35 countries.

Greg Di

Thanks for the input guys.

I spoke to the landscaper today and told him I was not cutting or redoing anything and that he would have to work with what's there. He's going to make it work with the pavers.

Frankly, I don't really care how he does it since I offered the HO the option of doing the entire backyard under my umbrella and they wanted to do it "around" me. This is one of those key advantages of paying to have someone coordinate an entire project from concept to completion.

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kevjob

yup seen it a million times. everyone is a GC architect desginer, I love when the husband gives me " I could do it I just don't have the time" I feel like adding "or the tools, knowledge, subs, license, etc...

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Kevin
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