Yeah, you absolutely can, and honestly, you should. I’ve installed enough public benches to tell you that if a bench isn’t anchored down on concrete or asphalt, it’s just a matter of time before it wanders off, gets flipped, or becomes a liability. The short answer is yes, but the how depends on your surface, and doing it right is what separates a permanent fixture from a wobbling trip hazard.
Let’s start with concrete. This is the dream surface for bolting down a bench. You’ll typically use wedge anchors or sleeve anchors. I prefer 3/8-inch or 1/2-inch galvanized wedge anchors — they bite into the concrete like nothing else. You drill a hole through the bench’s pre-existing footplate holes straight into the concrete pad, blow out the dust (don’t skip that), hammer the anchor in, and tighten the nut. The wedge expands inside the concrete as you torque it down, and suddenly that 250-pound bench feels like it grew out of the ground. Just make sure your concrete is at least 4 inches thick and fully cured, or you’ll crack it. I’ve also seen people use epoxy-set threaded rods if they want a cleaner look without the anchor stub sticking up, but that’s more work and way less forgiving if your hole placement is off.
Asphalt is trickier, because it’s softer and can creep under pressure or heat. You can’t just hammer a wedge anchor into asphalt and expect it to hold long-term — it’ll oval out the hole and loosen up by August. What actually works is treating it almost like a mini footing. I drill an oversized hole through the asphalt and into the compacted base underneath, drop in a galvanized threaded rod with a good epoxy or anchoring grout packed around it, let it cure, and then bolt the bench down to that rod with a washer and nut. Some guys use long landscape spikes driven into the substrate through asphalt, but I don’t love that for heavy-use benches because it depends too much on friction. If you’re in a pinch and the bench doesn’t get constant abuse, even large lag shields designed for masonry can hold in dense asphalt if you predrill carefully and don’t over-torque. But for anything public-facing, get below the asphalt layer and into something solid.
A word on hardware: go stainless steel or hot-dip galvanized everywhere. I’ve made the mistake of using zinc-plated bolts once because they were in stock, and after a single rainy season they were rusting orange streaks across the concrete. It looks awful and it’s a pain to grind them off and redo. Also, if your bench feet are powder-coated aluminum, use stainless washers to prevent galvanic corrosion, or you’ll get that white crusty mess nobody wants to see.
The real-world test? Once it’s bolted down, stand on it, shake it, have two friends sit and wiggle. It shouldn’t tick, shift, or click. If it does, your anchors aren’t fully set, your holes are stripped, or the surface underneath is uneven, which means you need shims or to grind a level spot first. Anchoring a park bench isn’t rocket science, but it’s one of those things where the difference between a five-minute job and a five-year solid install is just paying attention to the material you’re drilling into and not cheaping out on the fasteners.