building demolition
Demolishing an entire building requires the use of heavy equipment such as bulldozers and excavators, etc. Excavators are the most common piece of equipment used to demolish small to medium scale building. Long boom excavators are used to demolish many higher rise buildings.
Large scale projects may require a wrecking ball to demolish the building. It’s important that all dangerous items are removed from the building prior to demo like flammable liquids or hazardous waste. Then the structure is typically razed to the ground, sorted in to similar materials if necessary, and then loaded onto trucks and hauled to a landfill or recycling yard where the material can be legally disposed of.
Specialized grapple attachments are utilized on the end of the excavator’s boom to more easily pick, sort, and load material.
Water trucks are typically used and sprayed directly onto the areas being demolished to mitigate any dust issues.
Depending on the future use of the site, the building foundation can be left in the ground or removed. Often the contractor demolishing the house or building will need to handle utility shutoffs prior to demolition (i.e. gas, water, sewer, and electric), plug the sewer outlet pipe leading to the main, water tap kill, city state and EPA permits. The location of demolition often requires backfill, topsoil (if intended to be a greenspace), and seeding.