Estimating Demo's

[Nac]

I was just curious if there is some kind of trick or formula to estimate demo? I get asked often to give prices on demo of house's or small structures but still do not know how to figure how much debris i will have so i can estimate how much it is going to cost me to truck the debis. An y help would be appricated.

[imjustdave]

Im looking to find out the same thing... Anybody have some advice???

[Ford LT-9000]

Tell the customer what the disposal fees they will have to pay at the landfill per ton. Then you need to describe to them what has to be done like gutting the inside of the non wood items and the labour rate it costs to have a crew go in and hand gut the house.

The biggest thing is give a detailed description on what has to be done and give the customer a rough guess on approximatly what its going to cost. You will always run into problems so safe bet is do the job by the hour.

[cat320]

Tell the customer what the disposal fees they will have to pay at the landfill per ton. Then you need to describe to them what has to be done like gutting the inside of the non wood items and the labour rate it costs to have a crew go in and hand gut the house.

The biggest thing is give a detailed description on what has to be done and give the customer a rough guess on approximatly what its going to cost. You will always run into problems so safe bet is do the job by the hour.


That is probably the best way tell them the disposal fees and hourly prices.I think that once you do one it would kinda give you an idea as far as waste volume and what has to be sorted into what. I think if they want a price for the whole job I would probably figure the time ,machine rental ,police and fire details, and figure about how many demo trailers you might need and put in the quote it will be X amout if more is needed. At least something like that .

[imjustdave]

Well Im not sure about the first post, but for me I'm going to be demoing the whole thing, foundation and all is coming out, just going to be dirt left.
would you still have to demo the inside?
I know sometimes you can save some money on like items being together, like all clean wood, all concrete etc.

[jmac]

Don't forget to get a permit and a asbestos abatemant. I found this out the hard way.

[Electra_Glide]

Don't forget to get a permit and a asbestos abatemant. I found this out the hard way.
Excellent advice...

Step 1 - get in touch with the local municipality and understand the permitting and logistical requirements. Jmac mentioned asbestos (there could be others: fuel oil tanks, lead, etc), and cat320 mentioned police and fire details. These costs can and will add up. Is it in your "scope" to take care of these or is the owner going to handle those? If the owner is handling it, then you want to independently verify that everything is in place. If you don't have all your ducks in a row, the DEP can ruin your day. You also want to verify that all of the utilities have been turned off and disconnected.

Step 2 - Getting rid of the stuff. Around here, you can get a 20 yd. dumpster for $325-$350 (including the dumping fee). C&D (construction & demolition) does not have to be sorted, but no dirt, and no concrete. Talk to the hauling company and they may have some ideas about volume for a given size structure. Otherwise, those guys are usually pretty flexible, and you might be able to work out some sort of "drop and hook" deal where they are cycling you empty dumpsters until you're done. For the concrete and block, I'd just load that out into a dumptruck, but I have somewhere near me that will accept that kind of "dirty fill" for free.

Step 3 - site remediation. What has to be done once the structure is demolished? You just leaving a big hole in the ground or do you have to grade everything?

The weapon of choice is going to be an excavator with at least a thumb, and maybe a grapple instead of the bucket. The size of the structure will determine the size of the machine. Somebody just demo'ed a single-story ranch just down the road from me, and they had a Deere 120 excavator with thumb there for a week. Don't know if theye were hard-at-it for the entire week, since I only saw it in the morning and in the evening.

Good luck...

Joe

[jmac]

Gas, electric and water turned of at the street not inside the building. UFPTO can help with that. You will still have to call gas company to confirm. The hole in the ground can be filled in with concrete or hard fill possible wood but no shingles, carpet, tile etc. If you leave some wood in the fill it will rot and settle. Not good for building pad or driveway. As far as the demo work itself I just took down a 3 story home with my 17000 lb excavator in about 4 hours. Putting in dumpster another 3 hours. Dozer fill and backfill about 3 hours. The tipping fees the owners responsible for about $4000.00
Also plan on getting very dirty from dust, in some case watering down everything or doing work in rain helps to keep dust down.

I also had to be very careful of the homes next to this very close and had to make sure everything fell in and not out from building. Do this by taking inside out first and then pull exterior walls in to basement. Don't fall into basement with machine it can happen with all the demo covering outline of basement up. Make sure you have the basement filled in with demo before you drive on it. I love this sort of work takes out a lot of pent up aggression better than fighting with the wife!!

[dayexco]

we throw all the wood into a pile off to the side, crawl the excavator up on it, spend about 15 mins. spinning cookies. turns the wood into toothpicks, takes a LOT less loads to the landfill

[imjustdave]

wow

This is some good advice, the Aspestis study, and utilities will all be taken care of by the developer, and we don't have basments in WA state so that should be good, I really appreciate all of the inside info and help.

[atgreene]

I just was offered a demo job yesterday of two mobile homes. I did a small house last year, but a aluminum sided trailers are a different animal. I still have to figure what size dumpsters I want, but I'm hoping for 2 20 yarders.

Goos luck.

[imjustdave]

I did some demo work down in Mississippi of mobile homes, now we were paid by the yard to haul it away, so the more yards it is the more $$ there is... I don't think 2 20 yard dumpsters are going cover even 1 mobil home. I didn't pay a lot of attention... should have looking back, seeing as demo and estimating is on the brain right now. anyways if I remember corectly a single wide took about 100 or so, again take it with a grain of salt we got paid by the yard, so space savings wasn't even a thought and I didnt' actually load it up, I was running the skid loader, pilling eveything up for the loaders to grab and load.

[denick]

Nac,

Some of the estimating systems for demolition bulk we have seen and used are.

If you are estimating volume you can take each wall, floor and roof section and figure it the same as earth. Length X width X height divide by 27 = cy. then multiply by 1.5. Also take into consideration bulk in house, furniture, garbage, etc.

Figure the total volume of the house, the body = Length X width X height divide by 27 = cy. The roof = Length X 1/2 width X height of peak divide by 27 = cy. multiply by .15 = cy adjust for bulk.

Always look out for walls, floors and roofs that are multiple thicknesses.

Concrete or stone foundations should be estimated for volume but multiplied by1.5 or 2 for the swell factor of broken material.

There are many factors that others have brought up in demolition.

Nick

[Wawrecker]

Quanitys / units removed an hour, quanitys x weight per sf, Break it all down to its most basic form. This works well for select demo.

[nitrox2595]

Nuccio, we should get together some time.. i 'm from rockland and have all the same questions you do. If you are interested... email me at nitrox2595@aol.com. No threat just to share info.

[Dwan Hall]

Old thread but here is some info

I have done a frw moble homes and this is how it goes here

First one I gave a bid of $1500 plus landfill fee ( the land fill here will take complete trailers for $200 each section). They though it was to much so they donated it to the fire department for practice. Big mistake!! The fire department burnt about 1/2 of it then left the rest. I got the call to finish the job. Time and materials from that point on.
The original est. included jacking, reinstalling axles and wheels, towing to land fill as a unit, cleanup up site when finished. I figured 1 day plus $200 dump fee and $200 tow fee.

Time and materials took 4 days to seperate the metal from the wood, load into dump truck (7 loads) and haul to dump. Dump fee was $.07 / lb. That is right seven cents a pound. Wet insulation, wood, flooring, carpet, etc. Total land fill bill was $5200. My 4 days was $4000. The bank that was going to save money by doing it themself was not happy.

Dwan

[KeppleServices]

I bid a bunch of demo jobs here, I start at the foundation... its simple math.. LxWxH plus footers...that number X1.3. The walls if they are wood, I do LxHx6in, ceilings and roof the same way... then that number X1.2.

The last mobile home I did was a single wide with an addition on it that doubled the size of it. That ended up being 2 loads in a 52 yard grapple truck. The last stick built home I did was 1300 sq feet and was 110 yards of wood debris, and 40 yards of concrete.