help, there's a bath in my garden!

[jackiew]

hi guys,

I have a bath embedded in one of the flowerbeds in my garden ( we can take all the jokes about english people not knowing what baths are for as said please ). It was left there by the previous owners as some kind of pond - the kind that is full of weed and scum and dark water - the type you don't want to put your hands into in case there is something lurking in there that bites.

strangely I don't want a bath in my flower bed so I decided that I would dig it out ready for the hard rubbish collection ( I already have a perfectly good bath indoors ). Having moved the ornamental rocks round the edge (the bath sits proud of the ground by about 4" ) I then discovered that the previous owners were obviously unable to conceive of the idea that they or anyone else would ever want a bath-free garden because it appears to be embedded in around 9" deep of concrete. My pathetic efforts with a bolster chisel and hammer have failed to make any kind of dent in this concrete. the bath appears to be enameled metal of some kind. Its rectangular shape would tend to indicate that I am not about to destroy some marvellous relic of a previous age which someone would pay good money for.

So how do I remove this "feature" or am I going to have to live with it :eek: .

[echnidna]

Fill it up with rocks and make a feature out of it.
Or get some pet snakes and use it as a snake pit!!!

[Grunt]

If you are going to try to get this out by hand I would suggest that you get yourself a crow bar. They are about 1.8 meters long. Get one with a diamond point at one end. Ram said pointy end into the concrete and it'll break up. This will do the job but be warned that it'll be hard work.

Grunt

[outback]

Funny old world ain't it.
I went to a mates place the other day and he had a bath tub in his back yard, just propped up on bricks. He's going to cement it in permanently.

Not as a water feature as such, somewhere to fill with ice and cold beverages for bbq's.

[wombat47]

An elderly woman down the road had her front garden decorated with the usual garden statury (gnomes, etc.) and one toilet pan planted with flowers. She put it there to annoy her plumber son-in-law. The son-in-law survived - not so the now deceased elderly woman.

Must say it made me smile every time I walked past.

[journeyman Mick]

Jackie,
there's no "smart" ways of getting it out, you just need to apply plenty of brute force. If you don't have any brutes handy and you can't hitch a 4wd up to it then either a crow bar as Grunt suggested or a sledge hammer. My personal preference would be a sledgie, but mainly because I've got a worn shoulder and chipping with a crowbar wreaks havoc with it. If you use a sledgie (which can be a great way of venting any anger or frustration) you might be able to belt around the inside of the tub and loosen the grip of the concrete so the tub will pop up. Have fun!

Mick

[bsrlee]

For some reason I think you live near a mining area - a couple of electric detonators would work wonders on the cemented tub :eek:

Or if you know where the previous occupants moved to, a few sticks of 60:40 should deliver it to their new abode, perhaps not quite in the state it leaves you

Knowing Australian wildlife, about the only thing likely to live in it are goldfish, and if you have kookaburras, not even them. You could clean it out, knock the drain hole thru' & plant bamboo in it, it is about the only thing you can safely plant bamboo in.

[TSHSR]

Jackie, you have disheartened me greatly as I prepare to install a bath (fibreglass, no concrete) in my garden, as a fish pond, not a booze bar.

If you can get at the top lip, a few good belts from the outside side onto the lip has been known to release the concretes grip in a few other things I have had to remove. (like washing machine bowls etc). the worst thing could be if the bath had feet or some other attachments still fitted.

I am a little shy of crowbars, $70 for an hour with the bobcat/excavator and it will be gone and the hole filled in.
That way you will be refreshed to get the flowers in.
Have fun. Tony

[Robert WA]

Jackie.

You have a golden opportunity, don't waste it.

In 2000 my wife and I visited the US. We stayed in Madison, Wisconsin for a while and drove from Madison to Spring Green where there is an outdoor theatre we wanted to attend. On the way we passed through a town, can't remember the name, but obviously a Catholic community.

We saw at least 5 bathtubs set on end in gardens, the rounded end up, with statues of Mary standing in them. A sort of grotto type arrangement. The locals travelling with us called them "Bathtub Marys". Apparently there are dozens of them in the town and surrounding areas.

Be the first in Oz. Start the trend.

Good luck getting your garden pond out or, if that can't be done, build a bathroom round it.

[gemi_babe]

HI Jackie,

I recently broke up a heap of cement that was left behind from the old asbestos outside loo... I used a sledge hammer and a crow bar once I had made some cracks in the cement... its a hard job, but someone had to do it...

Wear protective goggles as the cement chips badly...

I found that the chunks of cement I was breaking off were pretty big and heavy, so make sure you make little chunks ...lol

Also think about where the cement is going to go... have the trailer, ute or skip bin close by.

Good Luck,
Kylie

[Harry72]

If you wish to keep the tub to sell and can lift it out of the ground(pull it out with a car or block'n'tacklewith an A frame), give the concrete a good soaking with water(must be saturated)and then heat it with a fire(chuck it on top of a bon-fire!). The concrete will crackup and disintegrate with in a couple of minutes, it should be short enough to save the enamel coating(baked enamel I would say).

[Theva]

Jackie,

Jack hammer or Kanga will be handy for the first bit.

Check the material of the tub. If it is cast iron, then it will be too heavy to lift out in one piece (by less than four persons). Ocy cutting and / or large sledge hammer will be required.


Regards,

Theva