Demolition
August 4, 2014
Demolition began at 8:01 am by cutting open the tarp on the back of the house.
They began on the front of the house by cutting out all of the windows.
Then the roof of the sunroom came off.
The sawzall came in handy!
On the back of the house, they removed the tarp from the roof to reveal my favorite window on the house. Notice that all of the lower windows have been removed. We kept all of the windows.
Testing to make sure that the roof is solid enough to support his weight.
The front sun porch came off pretty quickly.
The silt fence was installed in the morning to prevent construction debris from running into the street.
The original roof over the kitchen was missing. It was just covered with large sheets of particle board. No wonder it was leaking.
They cut the roof off in pieces using a circular saw.
And these strong guys were able to push the walls over with just a long piece of wood.
The first dumpster arrived late in the afternoon.
By the end of the first day, the sunroom was removed from the front of the house and the entire roof was gone.
August 5, 2014
The first item on the agenda for Day 2 was to load the dumpster.
Then the remainder of the front porch was removed.
And the exterior and interior walls were the next to come down. Waiting for another dumpster.
The guys take a break for lunch. That was the original kitchen table in the house. Not a bad place for lunch, huh?
At the end of Day 2, the barn beams and the floor were the only things that remained.
August 6, 2014
On Day 3, they took down all of the internal beams. That’s my ladder; I’m glad it came in handy.
The kitchen nook was the last thing standing.
At the end of Day 3, only the first floor was left. They used my snow shovel to clean debris from the floor.
And all of the beautiful wood and original windows were saved in the back yard. The beams will be reused in the new house – not for framing but to retain some of the original rustic interior.
August 7, 2014
Sunrise on the Day 4 of the demolition. All was quiet at 6 am.
On Day 4, all of the floor joists were removed to leave only the concrete foundation. They also pulled over the small chimney. See it’s missing from the west (right) side of the house?
And then the concrete walls were demolished to ground level. This was all done without machines. The big chimney was also shortened but the guys couldn’t get the whole thing down.
By the end of Day 4, not much more than the partial chimney remained, along with a pile of rubble.
August 20-21, 2014
Demolition of the foundation required some heavy equipment. So they brought a bobcat, excavator, and a dump truck to the site.
First the excavator knocked down the small chimney.
Then he took down the fireplace in one swipe. See the pile of rubble?
He used the bobcat to pick up the concrete and put it into the dumpster on the street.
Next he took out the back stairs with the excavator.
And finally the concrete slab was broken up and put into the dumpster.
All that was left was the stone wall in the background and part of the driveway in the foreground. Otherwise it was just a sandy hole in the hill.