VirginBuilder

Tear it down!

So, my father-in-law had access to a mid-size Bobcat tractor with front forks. The thinking was that we'd remove the windows first to prevent broken glass from littering the site (VERY IMPORTANT STEP!) then "loosen up" the house structure by cutting through many of the top plates, connections between walls, and by removing some of the support posts underneath the house. the house was in such bad condition that this seemed like it would go very easily. Unfortunately, appearances were deceiving. We went through the walls with chainsaws, reciprocating saws, removed panelling, removed support posts, and we still couldn't knock the house down with the Bobcat. So, we kept removing panelling until we could knock things down. I hired a couple of high-school kids and my wife's uncle to help out. One of the kids was the perfect construction/deconstruction assistant. He was about 6' 2", weighed about 250 and was strong as can be. I'm 6'4" and 210 lbs, but this kid was a seriously strong guy. Anyway we found out that even cheap old wood panelling adds significan't shear strength and that a shaky house can still take quite a bit to take down. In the process we found a beehive inside one exterior wall (oddly enough they didn't appreciate having a chainsaw go through the hive...) We also found a few wasp nests including some that were apparently in the ground under the house. These lead to various work-breaks to avoid stings.

After the house was down, we had a dumpster dropped off to take away all of the junk. Getting the stuff into the dumpster was a chore. Even with the Bobcat, it was a pain in the neck. For later work we found a good excavator driver. It would have been the right choice to take the house down also. He worked for $500 a day and was incredibly efficient with his rig. So, next time... I'm getting quite the list of "next times..."!

posted by VirginBuilder @ 10:17 AM