Breaker hammers. Buy or rent?

Well it seems I have an issue with the driveway to the rear of my property which is where my shop is and all the space I need to park trailers and other "items" BUT, I have discovered a issue, the angle of the driveway from the street is steeper than I thought and the rear of the 20 foot trailer is dragging As of now the next door neighbor (SUPER COOL) is letting me move the trailer through his back yard and into mine, good for now but I don't want to abuse this.

This means I will have to cut down the angle and bust up some (unknown amount) of asphalt which is three inches thick back maybe 40 feet from the street. This is now setting up a second project, replacing the lower driveway which is concrete of an unknown depth. This part I was planing to do in the fall.

So how do I accomplish these two projects in the most cost effective way? I do not want to go through the cost and hassles of renting an air powered breaker hammer (that would kick ass on this project)and compressor as the cost would be rather high, renting a electric unit is about $90 a day so if it takes me three day between the two projects that would be $270 (if there is no over run). Should I buy a cheap breaker hammer from Harbor Freight?

Unit one is a 35LBS unit (kind of light for the concert) that should handle the asphalt but might not be enough for the second drive way.

35 Lbs. Cost $300

Second unit is 70LBS and should not have any issues with either the asphalt or concert.

70 Lbs.

Cost $380

The way I see it is I will have a tool that I can sell at the end of the two projects Vs. just having an unknown rental bill that might be more than buying the tool outright. Am I crazy, or just out of my mind?

A few important points, My home has two driveways, lower one is concert and only leads to the garage under the house with no reasonable way to the back of the property, second driveway is asphalt and leads to the back of the property but cannot reach the lower driveway.

Thanks, Paul B

Go big or go home. Although I have broken a surprisingly large area with just a sledgehammer. But don't buy something you will most likely never use again. You can rent a nice big one from United for a few bucks a day. The biggest electric ones come on a little hand cart and will do close to the job of a compressed air breaker.

The other option is to hire a mini ex with a breaker. He would be done in a morning including throwing it all in a dump trailer. About 125 an hour plus a lowbed fee.

Fit a pair of skid wheels (smallish rigid casters) to the rear of the trailer?

The mini excavator with breaker is probably the most cost-effective way to go.

I bought one of the Harbor Freight electric ones a few years ago amd have gotten great use out of it. I planned in using it and selling it on CL, but we've used it a ton, have loaned it out a bunch, and it's still kicking.

Generally speaking, busting up asphalt is easy, but concrete is a pain in the butt. Asphalt cones up in big sheets, but concrete pulverizes into dust.

BrokenYugo wrote: Fit a pair of skid wheels (smallish rigid casters) to the rear of the trailer?

If this is a possibility......do it!

Rent the right sized hammer. It will do the job 3X as fast.

However, I would never dig up the driveway for a camper. You are gonna find a problem you don't want- drainage, hit a sprinkler line, find a fiber optic you didn't want to know about, whatever.

My solution was to weld 2 fixed casters (about 4") to the low hanging frame at the back of my camper. Works perfectly.

I have thought about skid plates for short term use, but I am looking long term and I don't want to have to add a set of skid plates to every trailer I might buy for the next 20 years.

Paul B

The labor of putting skid wheels (not plates, little wheels) on every trailer with a lot of overhang you buy for the next 20 years is going to be a lot less than redoing 40ft of driveway. This is not an uncommon modification (especially on RVs and travel trailers) and also keeps you from dragging on any other steep driveway.

You can even get weld on solid steel ones if you're breaking casters.

I have never seen those before. I will have to have a closer look.

Thanks Paul B

that is actually a very good idea