House Demolition Question

[Beltzington]

Has anyone had a house removed from their property I am interested in lessons learned.

Our family estate includes land and an abandoned house that is no longer insurable or inhabitable. None of the family members have any desire to live in the house and even if they did repairs would greatly exceed the value of the property. After loosing the insurance I am concerned of the liability issues incurred should someone break in and start a fire or hurt themselves. Simply selling the property would seem the logical answer but under full disclosure laws selling a house "as is" doesn't always cover the seller. I also believe the condition of the house will reduce the overall value of the land.

I'm sure the county would require a permit but would appreciate hearing from someone who has actually gone through the process.

fyi -
The estate was created by a lawyer who neglected to have the deed changed which has limited our ability to manage this property without further legal costs. So I do not believe "get a lawyer" is a turn-key solution.

 

[tcreeley]

Sometimes you contact a local fire department and ask them if they need a house to practice on. They might take you up on it - and burn it for you. Then you have an excavator dig it into the ground and cover it with fill. - But then I live in the country with few zoning ordinances!

 

[prichard]

Sometimes you contact a local fire department and ask them if they need a house to practice on. They might take you up on it - and burn it for you. Then you have an excavator dig it into the ground and cover it with fill. - But then I live in the country with few zoning ordinances!

I've heard multiple times fire departments no longer do this. Concerns about environmental issues and burning materials. Some building materials are quite hazardous when burned and I guess they figure there's enough risk with real fires. There also concerns of pollution in the air and water.

Following since I'll have to demo our current mobile home when new house is finished.

 

[teg]

So it will depend on where it is, how close to other structures it is. My neighbor in the mountains, paid (donated) $600 to the local VFD and they burned down 2 or 3 structures. And the VFD left the tires and bedding material in the house, doesn't hurt to ask them.

In my city, I drive to work, 4 miles and there are 5 house being crushed this week. Permits out the wazoo... don't know the recent price but back in 2008, it was $3000 - $3500 for about 1100 sq ft house. The two that are being crushed a couple houses down from us were bought for $420,000 and the bigger one was $480,000.

The house we own will also be a "tear down" but hoping to get $500,000 in a few years.

I would wait and get the house out of the court system. If it has to sell before it's settled, I don't think the house would reduce the price that much. At least not around here... it's all too common to remove a house.

 

[DrRod]

My daughters house was irreparably damaged by a tornado -- in Silver Spring, MD no less. The one lesson to share is: start early. It was amazing how many inspectors had to visit before the permit was issued. They had to check for asbestos, lead paint, rodents, drainage, gas lines, et al. Once started, it took two hours to bring it al down and a day to clean it up.

 

[CobyRupert]

"lightning" don't need no permits.

 

[N2DFire]

I've heard multiple times fire departments no longer do this. Concerns about environmental issues and burning materials. Some building materials are quite hazardous when burned and I guess they figure there's enough risk with real fires. There also concerns of pollution in the air and water.

Following since I'll have to demo our current mobile home when new house is finished.

So it will depend on where it is, how close to other structures it is. My neighbor in the mountains, paid (donated) $600 to the local VFD and they burned down 2 or 3 structures. And the VFD left the tires and bedding material in the house, doesn't hurt to ask them.

In my city, I drive to work, 4 miles and there are 5 house being crushed this week. Permits out the wazoo... don't know the recent price but back in 2008, it was $3000 - $3500 for about 1100 sq ft house. The two that are being crushed a couple houses down from us were bought for $420,000 and the bigger one was $480,000.

The house we own will also be a "tear down" but hoping to get $500,000 in a few years.

I would wait and get the house out of the court system. If it has to sell before it's settled, I don't think the house would reduce the price that much. At least not around here... it's all too common to remove a house.

My daughters house was irreparably damaged by a tornado -- in Silver Spring, MD no less. The one lesson to share is: start early. It was amazing how many inspectors had to visit before the permit was issued. They had to check for asbestos, lead paint, rodents, drainage, gas lines, et al. Once started, it took two hours to bring it al down and a day to clean it up.

Sorry for so many quotes tied together but I figured an All-in-one replay was better than 3 separate ones that repeated a lot.

Generally speaking Fire Departments will very seldom burn an "Acquired Structure" for training anymore. EPA regulations being the chief issue - given the amount of things you are NOT allowed to burn it ends up being very costly / manpower intensive to remediate things like asbestos roofing or vinyl siding or PVC Plumbing. And while on the topic of things we can't burn, in some places burning things like tires, appliances, etc is also bad Ju-Ju and may run you afoul of the Fire Marshal should you give it a try.

Next issue for the FD is, depending on the structural integrity of the building in question, NFPA 1403 (Standard on Live Fire Training) may require certain repairs or safety issues be addressed to make the structure enterable - again this becomes both cost & manpower prohibitive for the FD. As an example we had a structure once that was missing the railing around the stairwell on the 2nd floor. Stairs were fine just no railing around the well. 1403 would require we built one of some fashion to keep people from crawling / falling in accidentally - instead we tore out the stairs and made the 2nd floor off limits. Other issues might not be so easy to eliminate.


All of that being said - from a FD perspective there is still a LOT we can do to train on an Acquired Structure with out burning it (that are otherwise destructive and hence we don't get to do it very often) so hopefully they will jump at the chance to use it.


All of these hurdles will also be a challenge for you to just burn it yourself. These things are generally common but your State or Local Jurisdiction may have more or less requirements so I suggest a call to the Fire Marshals office to see what hoops you need to jump through to tear down & burn the structure. Then you can contact the FD and see if they are interested in using it for any training (including burning). Even if they decline to burn it they might want it for other things and then in turn will "stand by" on site while you burn it.

Best of luck whatever you end up doing.

 

[RobertN]

While I was volunteering, we had a few houses "donated" for fire training. It was great to be able to train in a real structure; closest to the real thing you can get. We did numerous evolutions over a few days; search for victims, limited access, emergency evacuation etc. We got our volunteers from three districts together on weekend, and paid crews on their regular schedule. When all was done, we burnt them to the ground.

That said, we did have to turn down a couple of houses due to lead paint and asbestos.

Another limiter can be time of year, and air quality restrictions.

All said, it was great training experience every time.

 

[ch1ch2]

Irving Texas,(big city in DFW metro-plex) has had several blown up in movies.
Contact some movie companies. They should cover all costs.

 

[MickeyDBC]

If you are planning to sell the property an old house that is still in weekend hunting cabin condition can add value. Now, if the roof has been leaking a lot and the interior is rotting and moldy it is probably too far gone for even that.

That being said, we bought a place that had an old 60's ranch house on it that had been vacant for almost ten years. The roof leaked and had to be replaced before we could get it insured, everything needs paint and updating, and we are going to tile the whole house to replace old ratty carpet and sheet vinyl. But the house bones are solid and the floorplan is decent so for about 25K it will go from a "free" house (bought the place by the acre because the seller thought the house should be torn down) to a nice weekend and vacation place. One man's trash is often another's treasure.