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Update: My whole plan for a backyard fire pit in Omaha fell apart last weekend

I was digging the base and hit a solid concrete slab about 18 inches down that NOBODY told me about, not the previous owners or my city permit check. This slab is huge, like 8 feet across, and it completely blocks where I wanted the pit. Now my choice is to either rent a jackhammer for a weekend and try to break it up myself, which sounds like a massive job, or scrap the whole fire pit idea and just put a patio set over it. I know everyone says 'just break through it,' but I'm leaning toward covering it up because I don't want to risk hitting a pipe or making a bigger mess. Has anyone else found a surprise like this and just worked around it?
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3 Comments
miles_perez
Wait, an 8-foot slab? That's not a slab, that's a whole hidden patio.
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river_burns
Wait, are you sure that slab isn't just a secret bunker entrance or something? I swear, I dug a hole in my backyard once and found an old garage floor that was only about 3 feet wide, and I almost threw my back out trying to chip away at it with a sledgehammer for half a day. Honestly, if I were you, I'd just cover it up with a good layer of dirt and grass and pretend I'm a genius for finding a free concrete base. Plus, you can tell people your fire pit idea got defeated by a stubborn piece of buried infrastructure, which is way more interesting than a regular patio anyways.
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craig.grant
Wait river_burns you found a whole garage floor?? That's insane dude.
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