Demolition Services Celbridge / Leinster / Ireland

There are many steps involved in the demolition process and many considerations about this industry as well that most people don’t know. The capabilities, methods and other aspects of demolition contractors, demolition companies, and building demolition services discussed in detail below.

DEMOLITION CONTRACTORS, DEMOLITION COMPANIES, AND BUILDING DEMOLITION SERVICES – DIFFERENCES

First, let’s find out the differences between demolition contractors, demolition companies, and building demolition services. All these types of professionals perform demolition tasks and are expert’s worthy of hiring. In general, however, the three different terms refer to the size (and consequent scale capabilities) of the companies. Demolition contractors tend to be smaller operations, focused primarily on residential or smaller office jobs. Demolition companies are often larger and may include full-building demolition capabilities. Building demolition services providers are often the most extensive scale with the most substantial heavy equipment, as well as explosive and crane expertise to dismantle large-scale office or residential buildings entirely. 

On the smaller end, typical equipment used might include saws, sledgehammers, or jackhammers. In the intermediate range, heavy equipment like bulldozers, excavators, dump trucks, and cranes come into use. In the end, when it comes to full-building demolition, explosives are often the choice. These distinctions roughly parallel the differences between these three types of demolition service companies.

However, these rough guidelines between the differences in demolition contractors, demolition companies, and building demolition services may vary regionally but can be useful to consumers in searching out and picking the right kind of company for a given job. After all, a demolition service company that specialize in bringing down 15-story buildings is probably not going to be the best choice to remove a staircase railing in a residential house. 

DEMOLITION CONTRACTORS, DEMOLITION COMPANIES, AND BUILDING DEMOLITION SERVICES – WHEN TO USE       

There is no one rule as to what types of projects may require the specialized talents of demolition contractors, demolition or building demolition services companies. In some cases, such as a home remodel, a general contractor or another type of company may entirely be suited to do minor demolition work as part of the project. In other cases, such as the intentional collapse and demolition of an office building, there’s no question that one requires a professional in destruction.

Some examples of typical projects or situations that are best served by demolition contractors, demolition companies, and building demolition services include:

• Home remodel requiring the destruction of the wall(s), interior or exterior
• Upgrade or installation of new, substantial, semi-permanent features like exterior stairs, basement/concrete elements, slate or concrete patios, and similar
• Precision work, such as destruction of a wall part, stairway, floor, roof, or other feature, while leaving the rest untouched
• Installation of basement waterproofing like drain tiles or a sump pit
• Water damage recoveries, such as the destruction part of a ceiling following a burst pipe or overflowing toilet
• Recovery following human-made or natural disasters, such as fire, earthquake, flood, hurricane, tornado, or similar
• The annexation of adjacent home or office space to be merged with existing structures
• Any task that requires jackhammers, pickaxes, wrecking balls, cranes for heavy lifting, or explosives
• Destruction of old structures on a site and remediation for new construction
• Full-building destruction or collapses

A good rule as to whether a project requires demolition specialists is whether it seems like something that a homeowner could do on their own with the right equipment and no specialized training. If the answer is yes, it may be a minor job that can be done by a general contractor as part of the building project. If the answer is no, then it is best to leave the work to a trained professional demolition contractor, demolition company, or building demolition service. After all, when removing walls, features, supports, and other structural elements of a home or office, a lot can go wrong very quickly. 

DEMOLITION VS. DECONSTRUCTION SERVICES

Sometimes, the words demolition and deconstruction are used interchangeably, when discussing demolition contractors, demolition companies, and building demolition services. However, deconstruction services are not the same thing. Deconstruction services usually refer to a much more labor-intensive, manual process of precision deconstruction work, and is often employed when most of an existing structure is to remain intact. An example of deconstruction service would be the removal and reset of one floor of an office building, to allow for custom-build work for a new tenant. All the interior structural supports and similar must maintain, and no damage can incur during deconstruction to adjacent floors or the rest of the building. However, walls, offices, rooms, and the overall floor plan may change drastically, meaning much careful deconstruction of what’s currently in place.

Another aspect of deconstruction vs. demolition services is that in deconstruction, often the primary concerns (aside from completing the job carefully and precisely) focus on retrieval and maximization of the recycling content of the demolished material. While most demolition services have significant recycling content that can be used to generate revenue for the owner or the demolition contractors, demolition companies, or building demolition services involved, it is often a secondary consideration in demolition and often a primary concern in deconstruction. As the names imply, demolition services are more about destruction and removal, while deconstruction services are more about the ordered breakdown of existing construction.

DEMOLITION PROCESS – MORE THAN JUST SMASHING THINGS     

While it is easy (and fun) to think of demolition contractors, demolition companies, and building demolition services as focused on using tools and equipment to smash or crush or blow up structures, that is only a part of what they do. Indeed, a lot of demolition service work is precision – the full-building demolition where demolition contractors can “go to town” is a rarity. While no two jobs are alike, the general processes of what goes into any given demolition task can outline as follows:

• Site/job survey to determine the best equipment and methods to use in demolition
• Planning for the demolition job
• Structural dismantlement and demolition
• Site clearance, which can also include the recycling/sale of material at this or a later stage
• Environmental remediation
• Salvage, recycling, and industrial recovery (if not undertaken at an earlier stage)

As should be evident, this is a far cry from the mental image most people have of demolition contractors, demolition companies, and building demolition services as just a bunch of people smashing things!  There’s real engineering, math, planning, heavy equipment expertise, project management, materials science, and a host of other disciplines involved. 

DEMOLITION CONTRACTORS, DEMOLITION COMPANIES, AND BUILDING DEMOLITION SERVICES – SOME OF THE ORIGINAL RECYCLERS

Even before recycling and reclamation was a mainstream concept in everyday people’s lives, demolition contractors, demolition companies, and building demolition services have been practicing this art. No matter how big a particular job is, there are often large amounts of debris generated that fall into many categories.  Most of this debris can either directly or indirectly be recycled or reused by the industry for future projects. The growth of recycling and environmental concerns has only increased the value and versatility of the materials that these demolition service companies can recover during a demolition job. Typical categories of recycling materials that demolition contractors, demolition companies, and building demolition services can recover include:

• Concrete, stone, and another aggregate that can be reprocessed and turned into gravel, tile, and other structural or functional elements
• Valuable metals from structural members as well as wiring, piping, and electronics, including steel and copper (most common), brass, bronze, iron, gold, aluminum, and more
• Insulation materials
• Ceiling and flooring tiles and materials
• Wood
• Roofing
• Soils and organic materials

All these materials have a place in the recycling or up-cycling stream and can bring in various levels of some income for either the site owner or the demolition contractors, demolition companies, or building demolition services involved in a project, depending on contracts and terms. 

DEMOLITION CONTRACTORS, DEMOLITION COMPANIES, AND BUILDING DEMOLITION SERVICES – CONCLUSIONS

As should be evident, there is a lot more to demolition work than meets the eye. The demolition contractors, demolition companies, and building demolition services experts need to have skills and knowledge of not only their equipment and abilities, but of architecture, physics, engineering, materials science, explosives, safety, recycling, reclamation, remediation, and more.  No matter how big is the job, interior or exterior demolition or full-building demolition is a process that best left to the professional demolition contractors, demolition companies or building demolition services providers.