Concrete Breaking — Blenheim & Marlborough

DirtPro breaks up and carts away old concrete across Blenheim, Renwick, Picton, the Wairau Valley and the wider Marlborough region. Whether it is a cracked house slab, an old garage floor, redundant water tank bases, driveway, retaining wall footing, or a commercial pad that has reached the end of its life, we have the gear and the disposal route to get it gone — usually for a lot less than what a skip plus dump fees would cost you.

Save thousands on tip fees

Here is the part most contractors will not tell you about. Standard transfer station fees for broken concrete add up fast — a modest residential slab is easily 10 to 15 tonnes of waste, and at full tip rates that turns into thousands of dollars in dump fees before anyone has even picked up a breaker.

We do not go to the dump. We take broken concrete to a local contractor who runs a crushing yard and recycles it into hardfill aggregate — at a fraction of what the tip would charge. That saving gets passed straight through to you. Better for your wallet, and it keeps tonnes of perfectly reusable material out of landfill where it does nothing for anyone.

On a typical residential slab job, switching from "skip and dump" to "DirtPro breaks, loads and recycles" can take a few thousand dollars off the bottom line. It is the same outcome — old concrete gone, site clean — at a much lower cost, and the concrete actually gets reused rather than buried.

It also means less double-handling. We bring the digger, the breaker attachment and the truck on the same mobilisation, break the slab, load it straight into the tipper, and cart it away in one visit. No skips sitting in your driveway for a week, no waiting for a separate trucking company, no surprise top-up fees when the skip turns out to be heavier than the quote assumed.

What we break and remove

Most concrete breaking jobs in Marlborough fall into a handful of common categories:

• House slabs — cracked, sunken or earthquake-damaged residential floors being removed before a new build or extension.
• Garage and shed floors — old farm shed pads, single-car garage slabs, lean-to floors.
• Driveways and paths — broken or lifted residential and rural driveways, footpaths, accessways.
• Water tank bases and pads — old concrete tank stands being replaced with plastic tanks on a gravel pad (see the Brancott Estate job below).
• Retaining wall footings — failed or redundant block and concrete retaining walls.
• Pool surrounds — concrete decking around pools being removed for landscaping or full pool decommissioning.
• Footings and foundations — old building footings exposed once a structure comes down.
• Commercial pads and yards — workshop floors, hardstand areas, yard slabs for businesses changing use.
• Civic and public works — skate park ramps, footpaths, public pads (see the Picton Skate Park job below).

If it is concrete and it needs to go, we can usually deal with it. For a smaller residential slab demo, see our demolition work in Blenheim.

Brancott Estate water tank replacement

Brancott Estate, one of Marlborough's biggest wineries, had a row of old concrete water tanks that had reached the end of their working life. The plan was to replace them with modern plastic tanks on a gravel pad — but first, the old concrete had to come out.

We brought the 14-tonne Hitachi excavator in with the breaker attachment, smashed the old concrete tanks down into manageable chunks, loaded them straight into the tipper truck, and carted the lot away for recycling. With the concrete gone, we dug out the subgrade for the new tanks, brought in fresh gravel to form the pad, and our client lifted the new plastic tanks into position. To finish, we spread topsoil around the tank pad to blend it back into the surrounding vineyard ground.

Start to finish, the whole job ran in a single mobilisation — break, cart, dig, gravel, finish.

Picton Skate Park demolition

Picton's skate park was being upgraded and the old concrete ramps had to come out before the new build could go in. It is the kind of civic job where you cannot just bash and run — there are kids, council reporting, neighbouring footpaths and gardens to think about.

We brought the 14-tonne machine in with the breaker, worked methodically across the ramps and bowls, sorted the rebar out from the broken concrete as we went, and loaded everything onto the truck for cartage. The rebar went to scrap; the concrete went to the local crushing yard for recycling. Once the breaking was finished, we tidied the site down to a clean platform ready for the new skate park surface.

Pictures below show the ramps coming apart and the cleared platform once we were done.

How the process works

Concrete breaking is straightforward when you have the right gear, but the order of operations matters if you want the job to run cleanly:

• Site visit and quote — 10 to 15 minute walkover to look at the concrete, check thickness, scope rebar, work out access for the digger and truck, and identify any services or underground complications.
• Breaking — the 14-tonne Hitachi swings the breaker attachment to crack the concrete into manageable chunks. Thicker industrial slabs take a few more passes; residential slabs come apart quickly.
• Sorting — rebar gets separated from broken concrete as we go. Steel reinforcing goes to scrap (which often pays for itself); clean concrete heads to the crushing yard.
• Cartage — straight from the digger into the Isuzu CXZ 390 tipper. No skip sitting around, no second contractor, no double-handling.
• Restoration — once the concrete is gone, we tidy down to clean ground. If you need the subgrade dug out, levelled, gravelled or topsoiled before the next job, we can do that in the same mobilisation.

Need a residential slab dealt with? See our Renwick slab demolition for an example of residential concrete breaking and site prep.

What it costs

We do not publish flat rates because every job is different — slab thickness, rebar density, access, and how much sorting is involved all change the number. What we can promise is that going through DirtPro is way cheaper than skip plus dump fees, because the concrete gets recycled through a partner contractor rather than going to the transfer station — your bill is lower and the material gets a second life instead of being buried.

Quotes are free and no-obligation. Most jobs need a quick site visit before we can give you a firm number — a 10-minute walkover is usually enough to scope the work and get a quote across to you the same day.

Related projects

Slab Demolition — Renwick Garage slab broken up & carted away for a new house pad

Demolition — Blenheim Structure removal, concrete breaking & site clearance