How to Demolish the House

Demolishing a house is a project that involves a planning process, familiarising yourself with safety measures and choosing a demolition method.

There are two main methods: deconstruction and demolition. That is, you can keep some of the materials for use, sale, or donation, or you can demolish the house as trash and haul the remains to a landfill. Evaluating all the factors to make a decision is what you and I will do.

Preparing to Demolish the House

To properly demolish any structure, you need the right preparation. There are legal and technical tricks without which you can suffer significant consequences:

1. Survey the building, assess its strength, accident rate, the possibility of recycling of building materials, take measurements to the nearest buildings that are not subject to breakage and should not be damaged.
2. Select the method of dismantling (ideally, develop a detailed design of demolition).
3. Agree with the utilities on disconnection of gas, light, water supply and sewerage. Otherwise, communications accidents may occur and the owner of the property will suffer additional losses.
4. Obtain the necessary permits.

Methods of Demolition: Break or Disassemble

There are three main ways to dismantle unnecessary buildings:

1. Manual disassembly;
2. Demolition by means of special equipment;
3. Explosive method.

The latter option does not apply in private construction, so you have to choose between “manual” and mechanized demolition. Which is better? It takes a long time to dismantle a house, of course, and it requires a lot of manual work. But you will be able to save some of the building materials and will not damage the surrounding property.

You can break an old building with a bulldozer quite quickly. However, all materials will turn into a heap of construction waste. In addition, you should pay for the rent of special equipment. But the price will not be a determining factor here, because handmade work is even more expensive, and it is almost impossible to disassemble even a small house alone. At least, you will have to hire helpers. Often, after evaluating all the pros and cons, the owners (or contractors) combine both methods. For example, the windows, doors and roof are dismantled manually, and the walls and foundation are broken.

What You Will Need for the Combined Demolition Method

Mechanized Demolition

The building can be simply broken down and broken into small parts using special equipment. Then the resulting debris is taken to a landfill for construction waste. This is the fastest, easiest and cheapest way to get rid of unnecessary structure.

As a rule, for such a breakage you need a crane with a heavy steel blade suspended from the boom. If the building has a reinforced concrete frame with strong reinforcement, you will also need a gas torch. It is used to cut the steel elements that can not be destroyed by the blank. Concrete foundations of columns, foundations, basement walls are broken by pneumatic demolition hammer. It is also attached to the boom crane.

In addition, bulldozers and excavators are used to demolish buildings. Special trucks and containers are needed to remove construction waste. With the help of such special equipment you can demolish buildings of any materials – from very ramshackle boards and logs to durable monolithic reinforced concrete and brickwork.

Of course, this method of breaking buildings can not be used alone. After all, you will need a park of special equipment and professionals who know how to work with it. Therefore, all that the owner of the site needs to do is to agree on the demolition service with specialists. Good professionals know all the rules of demolition of a private house, have sufficient experience, and are able to organize the work safely and efficiently. Depending on the size and strength of the construction, everything will be done in a day or two.

Disassemble by Hand

This method, unlike the previous one, can be used independently. Although here too, everything depends on the complexity of the work. Do not forget that demolition of a house is not so much a difficult task as a dangerous one. And savings on professional services here can turn into not only a loss of time, but also more serious consequences. Therefore, dismantling the house with your own hands, you should work as carefully and carefully as possible, and at the first signs of danger, assign this task to specialists.

The disassembly of the house is performed in several stages. We will describe the option that allows you to save the building materials as much as possible:

1. Disconnection of communications;
2. Dismantling of finishes;
3. Removal of external communication elements;
4. Disassembly of the thermal insulation;
5. Dismantle doors, windows;
6. Disassembling the roof;
7. Dismantle the floor;
8. Disassembly of walls;
9. Removal of construction waste.

No matter how carefully you work, some construction materials will still be irrecoverably damaged. Some of them can still be used in the construction of other objects (for example, the fight of bricks and concrete will be suitable as drainage or cushion under the foundation).

Demolition is labour-intensive and, if unskilled, dangerous. Our recommendations are simple – call our managers on (647) 428-0007 to draw up a work plan and jointly execute your project.