Demolition or tear down yourself?

Has anyone pulled their house down by themselves (and sell off whatever they can) and how long did it take? versus getting a demolition mob in to clear it? We have a single car garage which is asbestos and a few panels left of asbestos on the house. The rest is fibro. Any input would be appreciated.

Hi themax,

We only had to do a demo on a single brick garage, and the council conditions of the demo was that it was carried out by a licensed demolition contractor. Might want to check with your council.

Bel

Thanks Bel, I will do that today. Thanks once again. I have a feeling that I will be thanking you a lot in the near future! themax

For a house, you definitely need a licensed contractor! I don't think there is a council not needing one. Especially with asbestos, you need one with asbestos removal license, not just demolition license. It is required that asbestos be disposed of properly.

I recently demo my house using city civil (sydney area). They do lots of jobs and quite reasonably priced.

Also with asbestos, beware that asbestos could have been buried underneath your house/slab. That's exactly what happened to my house and cost me a few more thousands. Just be aware.

Thanks eho, i will contact the one you used and ask for a quote. I appreciate your reply, it seems that everything costs a lot more than you expect! We are prepared for that so let's hope it doesn't blow out too much! themax.

Yes, that happened to us - after he'd already done the house, the demolition guy found a relatively small amount of asbestos under an old concrete driveway slab, it came under "unplanned" extras in the demolition contract and cost us an extra $3500.

It may be a trick. Did you ask for the receipt of dispose asbestos?

We had the same story, at the end of demolition, the contractor asked for more money because they found some asbestos. But when I asked for the receipt of dispose asbestos, they just run way.

we sold of lots of bit- kitchen & appliances, bathroom vaniety, toilet, shower screen, laundry sink, fitted cupboards, windows, doors, gutters , picket fence, ducted heating, light fittings, etc.

we did the kitchen via the trading post and when they came around to look I said if there was anything else, let me know. They just about cleaned the place out.

Windows I did on ebay as it seemed cheaper to do that way.

All up, we got over a few grand for everything and the place was pretty much left as a shell.

There are places that might take timber floors/weatherboards.

We got a roof tile company to get our tiles- didn't get paid, but it was than going to land fill when they were in good order. Mind you, the house was there for about 2 weeks without a roof, then there was a lot of rain and the ceilings collapsed in the middle of the night- which scared the hell out of the neighbours!

Anthea

Thank you for the replies. I think we will do as anthea mentoined and sell off what we can (as we have some greaty windows, hate to see them squashed) and then demo the rest. thanks again.
themax