Home teardown question

House Repair Talk

Help Support House Repair Talk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

westernization

New Member
Joined
Oct 12, 2015
Messages
1
Reaction score
0
I just bought a house in need of tearing down. I was wondering if anybody had suggestion on the best and cheapest ways to haul it away. It is a small 1000 sq. ft. house that I am planning to rent a backhoe to teardown myself. I have a guy that wants to take all the brick and cement but im not sure the best way to dispose of the rest. (Renting dumpster, Hiring a dump truck, etc...) Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 
Welcome to the site. Depending where you are they may be rules on it.
Out here you would need a permit. It would have to be checked for asbestos in if it there, it has to be removed the expensive way and even with out that you have to remove all the drywall and insulation. In some ares you might get away with burning the rest.
 
There may be plenty of recyclables in there....most of which you probably took care of already....copper, aluminum, etc. Recently I saw a semi on the highway fully loaded with used lumber - nails and all. Didn't have a chance to check to see if any 2x4s were in there. Habitat Restores will take fixtures like toilets & sinks & maybe doors.
Depending on local dumping fees, this could be an option: https://www.thebagster.com/default.aspx
 
It mostly depends on what you value your time at and local rules and regulations. I am a reuse and recycle fanatic not because I want to save the world but because I’m cheap and it was instilled in me at a young age. Normally around here they get an excavator with a claw and dumpsters. The weight is not so much an issue as compacting as much as you can into a dumpster. If you just start loading building waste into a dumpster you will end up with mostly air in the thing. The guys that rip things down take a lot of time smashing it flat and snapping it up with the claw and packing it down in the dumpster. They are still allowed to push the foundation into the basement and then cover it with 6 foot of fill. There are some areas that don’t allow that now. As a kid all you had to do was call the fire department and the next Wednesday they would come and burn it down for free for practice those days have passed as well. If it is a city location talk to a neighbor about using their water to wet it down as you go.

Taking a house apart to salvage the materials is a lot of work, more work than building it in the first place and unless you have lots of time I would suggest just salvaging stuff that has a value. If the place has hard wood floors it might pay to pull them up along with the items SnS suggested. Without seeing a photo or better description that’s about all I have to offer.
 
Around here the fire departments will sometimes use them for training and burn them down over the course of a few days. If it is located too close to other homes that may not be an option.
 
Down here in FL they scrape houses all the time. It's actually pretty inexpensive. 3 or 4 grand. Consider the cost of time, equipment rental, dumpsters, labor and risk of injury. I'd get a quote and have it done.
 
I just bought a house in need of tearing down. I was wondering if anybody had suggestion on the best and cheapest ways to haul it away. It is a small 1000 sq. ft. house that I am planning to rent a backhoe to teardown myself. I have a guy that wants to take all the brick and cement but im not sure the best way to dispose of the rest. (Renting dumpster, Hiring a dump truck, etc...) Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Verify the need for permits, because the process and delays when involved in some nanny-state EPA violation will be stultifying at best.

One permit that is a general rule is a sewer cap permit. A sewer cap is exposing the sewer connection somewhere after where it comes onto the property, wrap the end of the pipe with hardware cloth and encase it with a 60lb. bag of concrete.
 
This is an old thread, but for the benefit of future readers - renting a dumpster is a better way to go if you're tearing down a house because it can withstand the weight, bulk and sharp edges. And a dumpster has high walls to handle bigger items. Plus, it's just as cheap as most bag companies and they'll haul it away for you. The whole service is usually just a few hundred dollars in most areas.
 
The Bagster is a really expensive way to get rid of a lot of debris, such that a 1000 square foot home would create.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top