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OK all you demo experts

BIGDAN315

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Joined
Jan 29, 2008
Messages
229
Location
Newark, NY
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Self employed in the excavating buis and have been
I am going to bid on a small demo job. It is a small, 1000 square foot cape cod home that was damaged beyond repair by a fire. It has a full basement which is half full of stuff, This guy was a pack rat, and the house with most of it's contents. The house is a stick built with ashphalt siding which was covered with cedar shingles. How does one go about figuring how many cubic yards that this house will take up and tonage as well for estamting cost for dumpsters. Would apprieciate any inputs. Thanks
 

Nac

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Sep 19, 2004
Messages
566
Location
NJ
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Construction
(5) 30 Cy boxs avg 8 tons each
(4) 20 Cy concrete boxs
I am just figuring my smallest house I have demo'd
 

Turbo21835

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Joined
Oct 20, 2007
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1,135
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Road Dog
Im going to say 3-4 30yd dumpsters. The can guys are going to hate me saying this, but you can give the material in the can a good beating. You will get more in there. Im not sure on weight laws in your part of the country, but the rule of thumb here is if the truck can pick it up, it goes. Last 2 cans I sent out that poor truck was just a grunting. Not to say I would help push the can on with the hoe either.

Concrete. Around here I would guess a train, and another lead full after that. You are also going to need dirt to backfill the old basement, unless your going to be putting a new house in.
 

BIGDAN315

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Joined
Jan 29, 2008
Messages
229
Location
Newark, NY
Occupation
Self employed in the excavating buis and have been
(5) 30 Cy boxs avg 8 tons each
(4) 20 Cy concrete boxs
I am just figuring my smallest house I have demo'd

Concrete boxes ? You mean for the concrete ? Any foundation stone and concrete I am planning on putting into the basement and all wood and other material into boxes. Do you remove the foudation as well ?
 

BIGDAN315

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Joined
Jan 29, 2008
Messages
229
Location
Newark, NY
Occupation
Self employed in the excavating buis and have been
Im going to say 3-4 30yd dumpsters. The can guys are going to hate me saying this, but you can give the material in the can a good beating. You will get more in there. Im not sure on weight laws in your part of the country, but the rule of thumb here is if the truck can pick it up, it goes. Last 2 cans I sent out that poor truck was just a grunting. Not to say I would help push the can on with the hoe either.

Concrete. Around here I would guess a train, and another lead full after that. You are also going to need dirt to backfill the old basement, unless your going to be putting a new house in.

Not rebuilding just filling in basement and planting grass. What would be a going price for this job in your area ?
 

tonka

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Jan 14, 2008
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Longview WA
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Equipment Operator
You probably have to remove the concrete foundation to, check your local laws...

or 2-3 walking floors
2-3 tryaxles for the concrete
 

BIGDAN315

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Jan 29, 2008
Messages
229
Location
Newark, NY
Occupation
Self employed in the excavating buis and have been
here is a pic

pic of the house.
 

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nedly05

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Jan 28, 2006
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Adk. Mtns, NY
Are you going to haul the house away your self? How far to the dump? How much per ton to dump? With an excavator you should be able to put it in a pile and munch it all up and load it out in a day to a day in a half if you had enough trucks hauling.Fill in the basement and grade it off the next day if the fill is close enough.
 

CM1995

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Jan 21, 2007
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13,246
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Alabama
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Running what I brung and taking what I win
My first suggestion, surfer-joe beat me to it.:D

OK on to plan B:

Couple of questions -
1. what piece(s) of equipment are you going to use?
2. How much of the house is full of contents? And what kind of contents are
they? That may sound simple, but I have had my rear end handed to me
because I did not estimate the amount of personal contents that were left
in the house. Clothing, furniture, appliances, junk - adds volumne.
3. What will you be using to haul the debris? Roll-offs or dump truck?
4. What is the tipping fee at the landfill?
5. Hard bid or unit price contract?
6. Will you be allowed to bury the concrete, brick, stone foundation back into
the basement hole.
7. How far is the borrow pit for the backfill? How much, if any, do you have
to pay for fill?


The answers of those questions will have an impact on the cost.

If I was going to give an estimate for this house demo -

6-8 30CY cans worth of trash, 7-8 tons each box
5-6 Tri-axle loads of concrete/foundation material - if you can't bury it
Backfill- would have to look at the site and see how the owner wanted the finish product.

Time:

If you had a 315/160 size hoe, you should be able to get it all down in a day, and finish the haul-out of the debris the next day. 2 days tops. Of course this depends on the amount of cans/trucks you have, distance to the dump and so and so forth.




On my last demo job (https://www.heavyequipmentforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=6922), I had 6 - 30CY boxes of trash, 1 tri-axle load of trash, 4 tri-axle loads of brick and concrete. This house was on a crawl space with brick piers and a 1/2 ass continuous footing. I had to use my loader since my hoe was down south at the beach. Since I had to use my loader, there was more dirt than I would normally put in the trash boxes.

This is the mistake I made on this one: The house was burned pretty well, or so I thought. I looked in the front of the house (it was boarded up pretty well) and I could see bare studs in the living room and front bedrooms. OK, I thought pretty simple. Well the problem was the rear bedroom and kitchen hadn't burned much. So all the appliances, cabinets etc in the kitchen were still there. Also there was a storage room on the back of the house full of clothes, boxes and other junk.

My bid for this job was $4600. It took 2 days to demo and clean everything up. I used my roll-offs and my tri-axle. Luckily I have an inert pit to take the concrete, brick, etc to that didn't cost me a dump fee. I had 6 30's full of trash that averaged 6 tons each.

6 tons @ $18 per ton, 6 boxes = $648 in dump fees.
2 days, 8 hours each, 2 trucks (roll-off and tri-axle) @ $75 per hour = $1200
953C, 2 days, 8 hours @ $125 per hour = $2000
Total = $3848
Profit margin 16%
(didn't really use the mini-hoe, so didn't include it)

My bid was $4600, so not too bad, considering that I got normal hourly rates for the trucks and equipment. This job should have been $6000, for a better profit margin. (35%)
 
Last edited:

BIGDAN315

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 29, 2008
Messages
229
Location
Newark, NY
Occupation
Self employed in the excavating buis and have been
Are you going to haul the house away your self? How far to the dump? How much per ton to dump? With an excavator you should be able to put it in a pile and munch it all up and load it out in a day to a day in a half if you had enough trucks hauling.Fill in the basement and grade it off the next day if the fill is close enough.

I will probably hall some myself and some to cans, The landfill is in the same town so pritty close by. I havn't checked on fees there yet but from past experiance can people are charging 40 a ton plus trucking in this area so the less heavy stuff to take to the land fill the better. I have a pc 70 excavator with hyd thumb and a tandom dump which will work just take more time maybe rent a larger hoe for the day. I am a one man band here so a good sise job for me. I have demoed mobile homes before and one 2 story barn with my machine which took 2 -30 yard dumpsters. All wood materials in the barn and salvaged the metal roofing. The home owner payed the dumpser fees and I got 75 an hour for my mini.
 

BIGDAN315

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 29, 2008
Messages
229
Location
Newark, NY
Occupation
Self employed in the excavating buis and have been
My first suggestion, surfer-joe beat me to it.:D

OK on to plan B:

Couple of questions -
1. what piece(s) of equipment are you going to use?
2. How much of the house is full of contents? And what kind of contents are
they? That may sound simple, but I have had my rear end handed to me
because I did not estimate the amount of personal contents that were left
in the house. Clothing, furniture, appliances, junk - adds volumne.
3. What will you be using to haul the debris? Roll-offs or dump truck?
4. What is the tipping fee at the landfill?
5. Hard bid or unit price contract?
6. Will you be allowed to bury the concrete, brick, stone foundation back into
the basement hole.
7. How far is the borrow pit for the backfill? How much, if any, do you have
to pay for fill?


The answers of those questions will have an impact on the cost.

If I was going to give an estimate for this house demo -

6-8 30CY cans worth of trash, 7-8 tons each box
5-6 Tri-axle loads of concrete/foundation material - if you can't bury it
Backfill- would have to look at the site and see how the owner wanted the finish product.

Time:

If you had a 315/160 size hoe, you should be able to get it all down in a day, and finish the haul-out of the debris the next day. 2 days tops. Of course this depends on the amount of cans/trucks you have, distance to the dump and so and so forth.

On my last demo job (https://www.heavyequipmentforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=6922), I had 6 - 30CY boxes of trash, 1 tri-axle load of trash, 4 tri-axle loads of brick and concrete. This house was on a crawl space with brick piers and a 1/2 ass continuous footing. I had to use my loader since my hoe was down south at the beach. Since I had to use my loader, there was more dirt than I would normally put in the trash boxes.

This is the mistake I made on this one: The house was burned pretty well, or so I thought. I looked in the front of the house (it was boarded up pretty well) and I could see bare studs in the living room and front bedrooms. OK, I thought pretty simple. Well the problem was the rear bedroom and kitchen hadn't burned much. So all the appliances, cabinets etc in the kitchen were still there. Also there was a storage room on the back of the house full of clothes, boxes and other junk.

My bid for this job was $4600. It took 2 days to demo and clean everything up. I used my roll-offs and my tri-axle. Luckily I have an inert pit to take the concrete, brick, etc to that didn't cost me a dump fee. I had 6 30's full of trash that averaged 6 tons each.

6 tons @ $18 per ton, 6 boxes = $648 in dump fees.
2 days, 8 hours each, 2 trucks (roll-off and tri-axle) @ $75 per hour = $1200
953C, 2 days, 8 hours @ $125 per hour = $2000
Total = $3848
Profit margin 16%
(didn't really use the mini-hoe, so didn't include it)

My bid was $4600, so not too bad, considering that I got normal hourly rates for the trucks and equipment. This job should have been $6000, for a better profit margin. (35%)

1 I have a pc 70 with hyd thumb and a tandom dump, 450 dozer. Q # 2 there is furniture, appliances,clothes,etc. This guy was a pack rat..:p Q #3 roll offs and dump. Q#4 don't know yet Q#5 Hard bid. Q # 6 Have to find this out yet. Q#7 don't know this one yet either. $6000 for this job sounds low I Have herd of contractors getting $10 to $12000 for home demoes.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Nac

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 19, 2004
Messages
566
Location
NJ
Occupation
Construction
Yes here in Norther NJ we have to remove all concrete walls, floors, and footings. Like I said that house will fit in (5) 30 cy cans 8 tons ea. avg. if you pack it down with your size machine it might be a little tuff. With my 160 and a grapple yhe house would be down in 1/2 hr. if the dump is in the same town you should be able to round trip in under an hour as long as you have 2 boxs and a deacated truck so you scould be loading concrete by the end of the day 2 days tops with demo cleanup and backfill. Also I would bring 1 or 2 laborers to help sort scrap metal and cover boxes and clean up so the rolloff truck is just pulling boxs and nor wasting time.
 

D5G

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 20, 2007
Messages
829
Location
Northeast
I by no means know anything about demo, but like Nac said, if you can shake loose a laborer or two, it will definately help. Be sure to take some pics for us if you get the job!
 

BIGDAN315

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 29, 2008
Messages
229
Location
Newark, NY
Occupation
Self employed in the excavating buis and have been
Yes here in Norther NJ we have to remove all concrete walls, floors, and footings. Like I said that house will fit in (5) 30 cy cans 8 tons ea. avg. if you pack it down with your size machine it might be a little tuff. With my 160 and a grapple yhe house would be down in 1/2 hr. if the dump is in the same town you should be able to round trip in under an hour as long as you have 2 boxs and a deacated truck so you scould be loading concrete by the end of the day 2 days tops with demo cleanup and backfill. Also I would bring 1 or 2 laborers to help sort scrap metal and cover boxes and clean up so the rolloff truck is just pulling boxs and nor wasting time.

Nac, I talked to code enforcement today and yes it all has to go .There will be nothing left but dirt. The driveway can stay though which is concrete. The landfill gets $ 52 a ton. If I had a ton of work lined up I would do as you descibed and geter done in a couple of days but right now things are slow so I can afford to take my time. The owner says he got some other estimates and the numbers where fuzzy ??? I am thinking they are not commiting to a solid number. Which is understandable to a degree.
 

cbhfour

Member
Joined
Aug 20, 2007
Messages
13
Location
Alpharetta, GA
I also am no demo expert, but here's how I go about estimating volume. I take the square footage of the building and then estimate how tall the footprint pile will be once the building is down. I do the math and get the CY and then add about 20-25% for air in the cans.(That's for wood frame, no brick or concrete) For the slab and footings or any other concrete, I figure the CY and add 40% for voids in the can. I just fiqured a Hardee's Demo and came up with 20- 30CY for the building and about 8- 20CY for the slab and footings. This job also has about 18,000SF of asphalt removal and 500 LF of Curb and Gutter removal. Also, on these bigger demo jobs, I will use two dumpster companies because they'll only put one dedicated truck each, that way I can get around 16 pulls per day.
 

Nac

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 19, 2004
Messages
566
Location
NJ
Occupation
Construction
I also am no demo expert, but here's how I go about estimating volume. I take the square footage of the building and then estimate how tall the footprint pile will be once the building is down. I do the math and get the CY and then add about 20-25% for air in the cans.(That's for wood frame, no brick or concrete) For the slab and footings or any other concrete, I figure the CY and add 40% for voids in the can. I just fiqured a Hardee's Demo and came up with 20- 30CY for the building and about 8- 20CY for the slab and footings. This job also has about 18,000SF of asphalt removal and 500 LF of Curb and Gutter removal. Also, on these bigger demo jobs, I will use two dumpster companies because they'll only put one dedicated truck each, that way I can get around 16 pulls per day.

Did I read this right 20 30CY cans? I wish you where my compation i would get every job.
 
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