| Building Stairs With Recycled Concrete |
By Greg Vanden Berge 1/8/2008
What a great idea using your old side walk or driveway to build a
nice stairway for your front or back yard. Using the old concrete
instead of sending it to the landfill. Wow talk about earth friendly.
Who would have thought that using recycled concrete would create a
beautiful center piece in your landscaping plans.
That's enough about that lets get to the nuts and bolts of building
the stairs. I came across the idea by visiting one of our favorite
breakfast stops in Fallbrook. I had been walking down these stairs for
quite a while when it dawned on me that the stairs where kind of jagged.
When I took a closer look I couldn't figure it out, What kind of
building materials did they use.
Then I realized it was recycled concrete in other words someone's old
side walk. They even used the old concrete to make some nice planter
boxes and retaining walls. The whole area really looks nice. The
landscaping created natural look with a old world look to it.
How do I build the stairs using recycled concrete? Simply put first
thing you need to do is get some recycled concrete. If you are going to
be tearing up a old sidewalk, driveway or patio then you won't have to
look far. If not you can contact some local general or demolition
contractors. They would love to have someone haul away their concrete.
The reason for this is they have to pay around five hundred dollars for
every ten tons hauled away from the jobs they are working on.
The more recycled concrete you need the easier it will be to get it.
If you need a lot you will be able to contact a concrete recycling plant
and get the phone number to a local contractor that hauls broken up
concrete to their plants. These people can drop off a large load if you
have a large area to drop it.
Remember that most contractors don't want to be bothered because they
are busy working or planning on working. The easier you can make it on
the contractor the more likely you will get what you want from them.
They usually aren't interested in doing extra work just to make you
happy. You can get a lot by being courteous from most people.
Now that you have the concrete you can start building. The concrete
will be stacked on top of the other concrete to form the steps.
Depending on how long of a stairway you are building you will have to
level the dirt and stack the recycled concrete to make the stairs. To
get a better Idea visit these links:
Landscaping Stairs Made From
Recycled Concrete
Green Diagonal Center
Handrail
Broken Used Concrete Stairs
Brick Tread In Between
Broken Concrete Steps
Plants Growing Into Stairway
Landscaping
About The Author:
Greg Vanden Berge is working on
the internet to promote the education for creating simple to follow
guides and home building books to help professional building contractors
as well as the weekend warriors. He is currently working on more stair
building books and adding useful content to help solve problems
created by the lack of construction knowledge in the building industry.
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