House Demolition

Here I am in South Carolina at the lot we purchased. When we bought it, there was  a  house which could not be salvaged. We've already done our part and cleaned up the neighborhood just by taking the old house down!

While adaptive-reuse is always my personal preference, there sometimes comes a point when a property has no redeeming qualities. It's time to consider demolition when a dilapidated building with no historical attributes is detrimental to the community because it's unsafe and unsightly.

While working for another company and doing some industrial projects, I learned the basics of demolition. A few years ago I purchased a property near a beach with a house on it which fit all of the criteria I listed in the first paragraph. I have photos taken throughout the process. Though we haven't built the home yet, the neighbors have expressed their gratitude to us for cleaning up what was the ugliest sight on the street. We've bettered the neighborhood already by taking down an eyesore on the block, and we're planning to build a house on this property sometime soon.

What made this demolition a bit challenging was the fact I was working in a state which is a good sixteen hour drive from our home. I took what I could in the vehicle I drove out there, but had to rent the backhoe a dumpster, and a few other items. With the help from a couple of part-time people, I was able to finish taking this house down and dispose of it properly in about a week.

If you want to hire a contractor (even if it's me) the information in this blog should be helpful as I'm share insight about what goes on, what is needed and how much time you should expect the project to  take. With this information, my goals is that you, the property owner, can now as relevant questions and know what to expect.


Look for my next blog entries to hear the details for the demolition. While some of the projects I talk about could be done yourself, this is not one of them. There are safety regulations involving the possible dangerous substances which you might encounter and this could be bad, especially if you don't know what to look for. Because I'm the kind of person who likes to see how things are done as opposed to simply seeing the finished project, I have photos of both which I plan to share in upcoming blog.