Demolition pricing help.

keif · Apr 12, 2022

I am pretty good with stick building demolition. I want to give a quote for this block building with metal roof. I also need to break up and remove the slab it's on and the one beside it. Planning to rent a 6-9 ton excavator with a bucket, thumb and hammer. Size will depend on what's available.

Building dimensions are 10ft 9 inches tall, 13 ft 3" wide and 11ft 2" deep. The building slab appears to be 6" thick. The extension next to it needs to be removed and it's 11ft 2" by 4ft.

Machine is $800 per day or $1800 for a week. Hammer is $300 a day I forgot to ask the weekly rate on that.

The block walls I'm not too concerned about but I have no idea how long it will take the hammer to break the slab into loadable pieces?

I know I need to calculate the weight of building and slab to figure out how much container company will charge me in dump fee.

For those if you who do this type of demo often how long do you think it will take and what would you charge for the job?

Here are some pictures if the building. Thanks for the help.

Acoals · Apr 12, 2022

Can you keep the block clean?

keif · Apr 12, 2022

Acoals said:
Can you keep the block clean?

I think so, what is the advantage in doing that?

KSSS · Apr 12, 2022

Pretty easy day. I rough guess there would be 5-6 12 yard trucks of block and concrete. I would take the steel to a recycler. The footing stem wall may be block filled with concrete or formed stem wall, it is not visible. Either way not a big deal. The pad, unless it is crazy thick will come out quick with a 1000 pound hammer. I would break up the inside of the floor once the walls are down, and then I usually dig down to the side of a stem wall to the bottom of the footing in the middle of the wall, then take the hammer and shatter the stem wall and the footing. Then take the excavator and lift up on the stem wall at the break you just make. Typically the stem wall and footings come up easy, sometimes you may need to remove the dirt from the stem wall so you can pull it up. Depends on how much excavator you have. May need to take a cut off saw and cut rebar at times. It would be a one day operation.

Acoals · Apr 12, 2022

keif said:
I think so, what is the advantage in doing that?

Usually you can get rid of clean concrete and block for nothing or a small dump fee. Obviously you will have to haul, but around here I can get rid of block for nothing or maybe a 60 or 70 dollar a load dump fee, rather than paying $72/ton to the landfill. As Ksss said, the steel goes for scrap ... should pay for the cost of trucking it at least.

CM1995 · Apr 12, 2022

All good advice so far.

Where is the building located? Reason asking is a building in Wisconsin is built differently than one in Alabama due to frost lines.

That building could have anything from a simple turn down slab or 4' wide footings with a 4' tall stem wall underground. It's what you can't see that gets into profit with demolition.

I am not as optimistic on the timeline as the others. 2 days including mob and not running into any snags underground. 4-5 tri axle loads (14 CY estimated) of block and concrete to an inert dump and 1 load of metal to the recycler.

It's futile to price it using my costs as I have no idea what part of the country this building is located. Costs vary greatly across the country. For instance Acoals is paying $72 per ton for C&D debris and I can dump for $27 a ton.

Acoals · Apr 12, 2022

CM1995 said:
I can dump for $27 a ton.

Maybe I should start trucking demo to Alabama . . .

CM1995 · Apr 12, 2022

Acoals said:
Maybe I should start trucking demo to Alabama . . .

$27 a ton is for the private landfills closer to downtown. $22 a ton in our county's landfill a little farther south.

https://www.shelbyal.com/253/Landfill

Ironically this country landfill is the nicest landfill in the area with paved roads to the dumping face.

Acoals · Apr 12, 2022

CM1995 said:
That building could have anything from a simple turn down slab or 4' wide footings with a 4' tall stem wall underground. It's what you can't see that gets into profit with demolition.

^^^^ This ^^^^

We could probably start a pretty long thread with all the stories of what got dug up on demo jobs. Everybody thinks its funny except the guy paying for the trucks ...

CM1995 · Apr 12, 2022

Acoals said:
Everybody thinks its funny except the guy paying for the trucks ...

Hard bid or T&M determines who is laughing and who is crying...

Acoals · Apr 12, 2022

CM1995 said:
$27 a ton is for the private landfills closer to downtown. $22 a ton in our county's landfill a little farther south.

https://www.shelbyal.com/253/Landfill

Ironically this country landfill is the nicest landfill in the area with paved roads to the dumping face.

Wow . . . does that keep prices for demo work down? I average maybe 5 - 6 dollars a square foot for residential house demos.

CM1995 · Apr 12, 2022

Acoals said:
Wow . . . does that keep prices for demo work down? I average maybe 5 - 6 dollars a square foot for residential house demos.

No, not really. I use a formula of 1,000 SF = 100 CY of demo for a typical residential demo with no personal contents inside. A 30 CY roll-off will average 9-10 tons over the demo with the first few being in the 5-6 range due to light debris and the last ones ranging from 11-14 tons due to drywall and other fines that are left.

I charge a fair amount more than $5-6 a SF. An average 2,000 SF house on a slab will average $15-20K including slab and footing removal if we are doing it. I'm sure there are contractors doing it cheaper and to be honest I don't want to do it for that. By the time we hire out mob and hauling there isn't much meat left on the bone. Single house demo is just not in our business profile if it's not included as part of a larger project.

KSSS · Apr 12, 2022

If they would let you dig down outside the building to see the footing and stem wall depth and size it would allow for a tighter bid. Here our frost line to current code is 32" - 36" depending on where your at in the area. Because you can't see any stem wall, just block, I don't think it is very deep or the block goes down to top of footing. CMU breaks easy, even when filled so if that is the case it would break up easier than would a solid poured stem wall. Pulling the footing up at a 45 degree angle to the outside of the building or so typically breaks the wall and footing relatively easy.

Shimmy1 · Apr 12, 2022

keif said:
I am pretty good with stick building demolition. I want to give a quote for this block building with metal roof.

Do you get to keep the fan??

keif · Apr 12, 2022

CM1995 said:
All good advice so far.

Where is the building located? Reason asking is a building in Wisconsin is built differently than one in Alabama due to frost lines.

That building could have anything from a simple turn down slab or 4' wide footings with a 4' tall stem wall underground. It's what you can't see that gets into profit with demolition.

.

South Eastern VA. We don't get any real frost heave here. I'm guessing it's 12"x12" footer with rest of slab 4". Thanks for bringing this point up I'll probably put it a stipulation that if it's anything thicker than that the price will have to change accordingly.

keif · Apr 12, 2022

Shimmy1 said:
Do you get to keep the fan??

The important question! they will have the inside cleaned out. I'm trying to decide if the roof and steel beams supports are worth taking apart cleanly and using them as a shelter for something at my house. My wife hates it when I bring home "stuff" planning to use it later though.

suladas · Apr 13, 2022

One exclusion you need to make sure you cover yourself with is excluding any asbestos removal with any demo, I know here some block walls are filled with it. I also price based on assumed things like pad thicknesses to cover myself. If it's assumed 5" and it's 6" that's no big deal but if it turns out to be 12" you'll lose if you don't cover yourself. Depending on customer some won't accept things like that, and in those cases just got to bid higher to cover yourself.

The size of hoe would dictate how quick it would go. With a 200 it would be done in 4 hours or less. A hammer is slow, it's much quicker just to tear the concrete apart with a bigger hoe

suladas · Apr 13, 2022

CM1995 said:
No, not really. I use a formula of 1,000 SF = 100 CY of demo for a typical residential demo with no personal contents inside. A 30 CY roll-off will average 9-10 tons over the demo with the first few being in the 5-6 range due to light debris and the last ones ranging from 11-14 tons due to drywall and other fines that are left.

I charge a fair amount more than $5-6 a SF. An average 2,000 SF house on a slab will average $15-20K including slab and footing removal if we are doing it. I'm sure there are contractors doing it cheaper and to be honest I don't want to do it for that. By the time we hire out mob and hauling there isn't much meat left on the bone. Single house demo is just not in our business profile if it's not included as part of a larger project.

Dang that's good money, most expensive house demo i've had is about $13k and it's around that size and has a full basement, and it's $85/ton landfill fees. Most of my work lately is smaller house demos and mostly pays pretty good, but the smaller one's are move in demo and out same day 1 trip jobs. Guys who have to pay driver to drop machine, or hire out moves just can't compete, or if they try there just isn't the money in it. But on many little 800 sq/ft houses with basement and small garage around the $8k mark make around $3-4k in one day so it's good money for me.

keif · Apr 13, 2022

suladas said:
One exclusion you need to make sure you cover yourself with is excluding any asbestos removal with any demo, I know here some block walls are filled with it. I also price based on assumed things like pad thicknesses to cover myself. If it's assumed 5" and it's 6" that's no big deal but if it turns out to be 12" you'll lose if you don't cover yourself. Depending on customer some won't accept things like that, and in those cases just got to bid higher to cover yourself.

The size of hoe would dictate how quick it would go. With a 200 it would be done in 4 hours or less. A hammer is slow, it's much quicker just to tear the concrete apart with a bigger hoe

They had an inspection done and showed me a certificate saying no asbestos present.

CM1995 · Apr 13, 2022

keif said:
They had an inspection done and showed me a certificate saying no asbestos present.

Saludas brought up a great point regardless. Always have a stipulation that excludes asbestos and hazardous materials of all kinds.

Here is one I use in my bids -

Disconnection and/or capping of existing utilities BY OTHERS
Pricing includes ONLY the surface improvements which are non-hazardous and
non-regulated materials.
No asbestos survey, testing, removal or disposal - BY OTHERS
No contaminated soil excavation, removal, testing or disposal is included.

Demolition pricing help.

Well-Known Member

Senior Member

Well-Known Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Administrator

Senior Member

Administrator

Senior Member

Administrator

Senior Member

Administrator

Senior Member

Senior Member

Well-Known Member

Well-Known Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Well-Known Member

Administrator