On Saturday we rented a walk-behind concrete saw and made some cuts so that we'd have clean breaks on the parts that we need to remove. I got an entire section of the original sidewalk out in only a few hours without any incident. It was only about 4 inches thick and cracked pretty easily after a few swings of the sledge. Then I started on the tapered section that was added when the driveway was poured. I noticed right away that the concrete for this section was much harder, and to top it all off, was 8-10 inches thick on most parts. I figured that if I swung harder with the sledge, it would have to break. Well, I was wrong, and pretty soon I was totally worn out and didn't think I could lift the sledge again. I hadn't hardly made a scratch on this section and I didn't think there was any way I was getting it out of there. So I took a little break and worked on a small section near the house that was poured with the driveway. It was only 4 inches thick so it wasn't too bad. I took another crack at the sidewalk section, but to no avail. I decided that I had done enough sledge work for one Saturday and gave up. Yesterday after work I made a little more progress by hollowing out all the gravel beneath the sidewalk, but I still had removed less than one third of the section. Today when I got home, I started again and was joined by some neighbors. After a couple of hours, we finally got the crack to break and the entire remaining section came out at once. So, in summary, concrete is hard.

Check out the picture in the Concrete Album of the JK1 Gallery.