Cool Demolition Jobs

Wolf

What's the most interesting demolition job you've ever done?

What's been the toughest building to knock down? One that just wouldn't give up?

What's the oldest building you ever wrecked? The most interesting structure?

Anyone encounter protestors on the job or other snafus to slow down the wrecking?

Interested to know, folks.

joasis

I had to remove a historic 2 story that was very dilapidated to make way for a new office. Built in 1904 (3 years prior to statehood for Oklahoma) the house was beautiful in its day, but no one wanted to tackle the expense of getting it back in shape, so down it went.

I unloaded my backhoe on site, and started clearing the brush away for room for the rool-offs, and noticed honeybees coming out of the side of the house. I swung the boom over and decided to rake the side of the house, and encourage the bees to leave. Well..what happened next is local legend now. I make one swipe down on the bee hole, and then I am RUNNING for my life. I dropped my cell phone, my glasses, and ran 6 blocks swatting with my cap and cussing, til I finally got to my pickup and bailed in. One loan bee came in with me and let me have his calling card. I drove my truck back up to the house and opened the door a crack, reached down for my phone and another bee let me have it.... ...I sat there for 45 minutes, listening to the backhoe running half throttle and the bees were still swarming it til dark, and then I was able to get out and kill it. 4 stings and 1 ruined pair of Ray Bans, and the bees were still firmly in possesion of the property.

After jacking around for 3 weeks, a guy came and smoked the bees and with a sawzall, cut out a section of the wall 32 inches wide and 10 feet tall, and loaded the wall, bees, and all on a trailer. The combs left in the wall of the house yielded a washtub of honey......the guys at the coffee shot are still laughing and it happened last year. What fun.

Wolf

What an amazing story. Four bee stings. You are tough. That old house put up a heck of a fight.

That sounds really crazy. Did you finally get to demo the house after the bees were cut out? How did that go? Did you save anything from the historic building or trash it all with your machine?

Cole

Wow, those damn bees.

I have a similar story.

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joasis

The house went down without a hitch, the local friends of the library tried to get it listed with the Historical Society before we took it down, but were refused since no one wanted the responsibility or fixing the old house up. We salvaged the ornate woodwork in the library (doctor's home and office), and french doors, casings, and a rare eagle claw foot tub sold by Montgomery Ward in 1923, and I read for two evenings the newspapers stuffed in the walls from WW1....way cool.

Before the hammer comes out for destroying the old house, here is what I had to work with: It had been a rental for 20 years or more, and unlivable for the last 10. It was on a plastered dirt wall basement that was settling. The roof had been leaking for 10 years or better, and it sat on Main street, 1/2 block from the business district, with a vacant lot on one side (parking for a garage) and rentals on the other. It also had a 50 foot wide lot and the house was 36 feet square...the driveway was wide enough for a Model T. No back yard, no room for a modern driveway....estimated cost to rehabilitate 80k, and the guy who purchased it for $6000 wanted the lot. I demolished the house for $4000, and will build the new office for 55k.

End of the story is the home served it's useful life. We can't save every old building. We dropped the home after removing the interesting items, loaded the shingles and asphalt siding, burned the shell into the basement, backfilled the basement. Now, it is one of the sites I will build on this summer.

Wolf

Did you rebuild the site yet? How is the project going? Is it coming in on or under budget? Profitable job?

Teetorbilt

Sort of related. I once ran a D-11 into a tree full of wasps. I didn't come out near as well as joasis, I was one hurting puppy.

__________________
You can't solve you're problems with the same level of thinking that created the problems.

Albert Einstein

Tscarborough

I demo'd an 80 year old telephone building, 6 wythe brick laid up solid, with an 80# jackhammer. It was the hardest work I have ever done, and had I not been 18 years old, it would have killed me.

The most interesting was a total gut of the Gulf Oil building in Downtown Houston. The elevator equipment was basically a scale model of the building, with the switches simulating each floor. It was tres' cool. I hated to destroy it, but they made me break it up for scrap. My labor foreman at the time had worked on the building when it was built, hauling bags of cement up the stairs on his back (36 stories) for the on-floor handmixed PIP concrete. One tough MF'er, let me tell you.

Off topic, but dealing with bees, one night in high school we were at a place we called the Dead End, getting drunked up, as usual. Someone picked up a piece of wood on the ground for our fire and a nest of ground hornets came after us. 6 kids, male and female, ran down the road, with the door to the car open and the lights on. They were, of course, attracted to the interior light and swarmed the car. We all stripped to our underwear and one guy put on all the clothes, ran to the car, rolled the windows down and tear-assed around the countryside until most the hornets were blown out of the car. He got a few dozen stings, but he did get a cool nickname from the event. The other guys got to oogle chicas in their underwear, so it was a fair trade.

Teetorbilt

What are 'ground hornets'? Similar to yellow jackets?

__________________
You can't solve you're problems with the same level of thinking that created the problems.

Albert Einstein

Tscarborough

Similar, but bigger, meaner and they live in an underground nest.

Tscarborough

I was wrong, apparently, they are yellowjackets:

http://www.masterbeekeeper.org/sting...llowjacket.htm

Teetorbilt

We don't have them here, too hot I'm guessing. We sure do get them in NC though! Very funny creatures. When cleaning fish, they keep coming and you can bat them away like flies without getting stung. Other times they can have a total hissy fit.

I ran over a nest with the lawnmower and they had a total conniption. I got stung a few times and felt that retaliation was due. I did it again but stopped the 33" Snapper right on top of the hole and walked away. That night, I poured gas down the hole and set it on fire. All gone.

__________________
You can't solve you're problems with the same level of thinking that created the problems.

Albert Einstein

Wolf

Hey, Tscarborough:

How come nobody thought to save that elevator equipment? That sounds really cool.

Did you hear about the demo of the old William Penn hotel in downtown Houston. They were supposed to save it to restore the building, but instead they tore it down suddenly in January. Everybody was very surprised that it came down.

It was so sad that they didn't save any pieces from the building. There were a lot of beautiful old decorations on that building. I guessit was like when your boss made you destroy that elevator equipment back when.

Are you still doing any demo. Don't you just love it? All that crashing and crunching.

Cole

http://www.break.com/index/landmark_...emolition.html

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Tscarborough

I hate doing demo, usually. To my mind almost everything is worth saving, even if it is just as salvage. There was a couple of hundred bucks worth of copper in the switches is why it was not saved.

Wolf

That is a really cool video, Cole. Thanks for submitting that. IT's awesome, you see a couple of flashes at the bottom of the building, then the whole building sits down in a pile of smoke. What power. Totally awesome, man.

By the way, that website break.com has a nice little feature called girl of the day. Check it out. not too bad. today's is natalie from Baton Rouge--wouldn't mind getting caught in the hurricane with her. SWEET. Check it out.

Wolf

Sweet on Natasha too. Can we get these babes working on our jobsites too, little workday distractions?

Peladu

That same website is also full of spyware.

Wolf

how do you know there is spyware, and how to get rid of it?

Peladu

That particular site ran complete havoc on mt laptop. I was spyware free until I hit that site. Since then I will never visit that site again.

Go here, everything you will need and then some.....
http://www.contractortalk.com/f17/protecting-your-computer-6078/