Has anyone ever done this? Where do you start? Drywall and ceiling removal first then roof and work my way down?
I did do this recently. Here's the basic process I followed. It's not for everyone. I came up with this based on the construction and state of the house. Your house may be very different so stay safe.
Strip the inside first. I wore a respirator due to mold, asbestos, dust and fibreglass concerns. Install diagonal braces on all exterior walls. Lots of them.
Remove non load bearing interior walls. Strip electrical and plumbing.
Fibreglass insulation was bundled compressed and tied between 18"x24" pieces of panelling. It's stored for reuse in the garage.
Strip the outside walls. Bricks and stone work were removed and cleaned with an air chisel. Siding was recycled on the FIL's garage. Install diagonal braces on the exterior of the exterior walls. Duplicate the interior ones. By removing the sheathing you have compromised the integrity of the structure. Without good diagonal bracing it could flop.
Strip the roofing material down to the wood. Asphalt has to be properly disposed of. No burning or burying for that.
Remove the interior diagonal wall braces. They should be redundant to the exterior ones.
I'll explain the next part before I describe it.
Up to now it's been pretty straight forward. Always on good footing very little use of ladders.
Now it gets quite dangerous because the integrity of the structure is only going to become more compromised. Rather than climb on the roof again to tear it apart we removed the diagonals and pulled the roof down to the ground.
I tore mine down in sections, leaving half the house up to live in during the rest of the renovation. Here's a short
vid of the second section coming down. This section was left up as a buffer between my living space and the main part of the structure that we collapsed earlier.
When the house flops like this the lumber and nails are all bounced and loosened. After that the roof is on the ground it is quite easy to disassemble.
As for recycled lumber. Mine was quite useless due to the inconsistent sizes. The 2x4s spanned several decades and were anywhere from 1.5" x 3.5" to 1 7/8" x 3 3/4" I used them for bracing and stakes etc during the rebuild.
Rotten floors and scrap lumber were burned. I only burned wood all else was hauled to the dump including the ashes which were full of nails.