Deconstructing a house. How too??

[clovergamecock]

Hi all,

Some of you know that I have been trying to sale a 2200sqft brick house for some time and have had no takers. I am not going to pay someone 10k to tear it down. Now I am considering deconstructing the houe myself and salvaging whatever wood I can for future projects. All I can see it taking is time and an occasional construction dumpster rental Has anyone ever done this? Where do you start? Drywall and ceiling removal first then roof and work my way down? Any sites for how to out there?

Thanks
Wade

 

[Rustyiron]

I bet that before your half way through it, that $10k will look pretty good. Get the brick off first. Can you burry them? Better yet, have you asked the local FD if they want a bldg. to train on?

 

[clovergamecock]

10k is just not a possibility. I sent the local fire chief an email today to see if they were interested or knew a VFD that may be. I have not heard back yet. I figure I have 10 months to do it. It needs to be down and off the books before Jan 1st 2014 so I do not have to pay a whole nother year in taxes. I am already stuck with 2013. As far as burrying them I don't see why now. I would just need to rent a back hoe I guess. With the current property I live on and the property that the house is on I have 13 acres to find a hole....

 

[Bdavis]

Hi all,

Some of you know that I have been trying to sale a 2200sqft brick house for some time and have had no takers. I am not going to pay someone 10k to tear it down. Now I am considering deconstructing the houe myself and salvaging whatever wood I can for future projects. All I can see it taking is time and an occasional construction dumpster rental Has anyone ever done this? Where do you start? Drywall and ceiling removal first then roof and work my way down? Any sites for how to out there?

Thanks
Wade

I would be shocked if you could not find a local fire department that would be more than eager to do
most of the work for you . One word of warning don't try to count the value of the house off as a donation.
THe IRS really tracks that area pretty closely.
Good luck !

 

[CurlyDave]

At least consider hiring some day laborers.

Used brick has potential value. See if someone might be interested in buying it. If you burry it, it can haunt you for the rest of your ownership of where you burry it. Stack it neatly on pallets in an accessible location and someone will want it.

Call for prices on construction dumpsters before you commit to this path. In CA, I spent ~$150 for each 8 yard load of dirt I had removed this way.

 

[MarkV]

I am really surprised at the $10k price to take it down. Guess that must include clean up. Around here you can hire someone with a big excavator for under $1k per day and they would easily have it on the ground as well as dig a hole for what you want to bury. Do check on permits required. If there is any chance of asbestos in the building it can get expensive.

MarkV

 

[dave1949]

Agree with CurlyDave, save the bricks, someone will buy them. If you do save the bricks, it needs to be done before any VFD training or they will be ruined by the heat.

If the VFD uses it for training, they will probably practice a few different training scenarios before finally burning it down to the foundation. You will still have the rubble to clean-up after the burn.

 

[Ed of all trades]

How old is the house, if it is an old house the brick are not just siding they are holding up the house. If you do it be careful, things can fall at the most unexpected times. hope all goes well.

 

[bcp]

There may be some construction charity near you that will dismantle it for the materials. Worth checking.

Here's one:

Central South Carolina Habitat for Humanity

ReStore - Shop | Donate | Volunteer - Central SC Habitat for Humanity

Bruce

 

[Tig]

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.

 

[bdeboer]

10k is just not a possibility. I sent the local fire chief an email today to see if they were interested or knew a VFD that may be. I have not heard back yet.

Around here they require you to have an asbestos inspection/and abatement before they will burn it. Probably got something about lead paint by now if built in the 70's or before.

 

[/pine]

Hi all,

Some of you know that I have been trying to sale a 2200sqft brick house for some time and have had no takers. I am not going to pay someone 10k to tear it down. Now I am considering deconstructing the houe myself and salvaging whatever wood I can for future projects. All I can see it taking is time and an occasional construction dumpster rental Has anyone ever done this? Where do you start? Drywall and ceiling removal first then roof and work my way down? Any sites for how to out there?

Thanks
Wade

One of the easiest ways to dismantle the framing etc. is by using a reciprocal saw and cutting the nails...much easier than using cats paws and nail bars...The drawback is when you reuse the wood you have to be careful of the leftovers (sawed nails) that reek havoc on circular saw blades...

 

[KennyG]

I don't think this is such a big deal. It will just take time and some heavy lifting. Try to find some hard working laborers to help you. Most used brick will have good value, but it needs to be cleaned (of mortar) and that's a time consuming task. One caution - if this is a real brick house (not just face brick) brace the walls well before you take the roof off. Brick walls have surprising little resistance to side loads without bracing. I pulled the roof off a solid brick garage once and it scared me to death until I got bracing on it.

If nothing else, you can use the salvaged wood for firewood. The piping and wiring will bring a few bucks as scrap.

 

[PILOON]

We once needed to demolish a 12 x 26 structure. We gutted the innards most siding to the point of instability with the roof panels being impossible, they being nailed every 3" with 2 1/2 spiral nails.
My solution---tied a 3/4" rope up and over to the far side, locked the jeep in 4WD, LOW and flipped the whole structure upside down.
The landing jolt liberated all the nails nicely and we recuperated all the 4 x 8 BC fir plywood for re use as floor underlay.
With the rope and distance it was a very safe operation.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

You don't want to burn or bury your house, that will turn your land into a dump which someday will cost much more than $10K to clean up. That said, disposal is going to be your biggest cost.

The way the pros do it around here is to knock the house down, break it into pieces small enough to fit into a dumpster and cart the whole thing away. You have to decide whether you want to go that route, or the route of taking everything apart and sorting it and then disposing of it or reusing it depending on the material.

The pros just load the whole house into dumpsters because time is money, but you'll save a lot on the disposal if you sort the materials. In my neighboring state of Massachusetts recycling of building materials is mandated, so there is a market for used materials, but they have to be clean. Drywall is recycled, so a dumpster full of pure drywall is much cheaper to get rid of than a dumpster of unsorted debris. My local concrete recycler takes broken concrete and bricks for free, as long as it's clean. Wood can be reused or burned on site.

Demolition is dangerous work. Gravity is working against you. If you're going to disassemble and sort, I would take as much off as you safely can with the house still standing.

If you want to flatten the house, the key is that most buildings can't stand much sideways force. Some guys took down a two-story house across the street from me using only a Bobcat. They punched holes through the walls in one corner near the roof, and wrapped a chain around the corner post and pulled. The whole house came down right quick. If I were to do it, I think I would have two corners wrapped before I started pulling, in case I pulled a corner off and the house was still standing. I wouldn't want to go up on a ladder to attach another chain after I had ripped one corner off! And make sure the chain is long enough that there's no chance of the house falling on you.

Take lots of pictures!

 

[buckeyefarmer]

You demo in the reverse order that you build it. You can gut it first, don't remove any load bearing walls. Then start on roof and take it down from the top down.

 

[Grumpy Old Man]

10k is just not a possibility. I sent the local fire chief an email today to see if they were interested or knew a VFD that may be. I have not heard back yet. I figure I have 10 months to do it. It needs to be down and off the books before Jan 1st 2014 so I do not have to pay a whole nother year in taxes. I am already stuck with 2013. As far as burrying them I don't see why now. I would just need to rent a back hoe I guess. With the current property I live on and the property that the house is on I have 13 acres to find a hole....

The fastest way to remove that building is to offer it up in the free section on craigslist It will be down in days and gone many people will spend the time to reuse the brick and lumber ,I'll bet you get 5 calls the first day !

 

[Reyer Farms]

You could rent it. Get some cash for a few months and they will tear it down within a year.

 

[PapaPerk]

Knock it down with and excavator and using the excavator load it into multiple roll of dumpster with a one way ticket to the land fill.

It's gonna cost money one way or the other.

 

[Grumpy Old Man]

Knock it down with and excavator and using the excavator load it into multiple roll of dumpster with a one way ticket to the land fill.

It's gonna cost money one way or the other.

not if you give it away ,i would take it down myself if I was closer