How Has Building Demolition Changed in the Last Decades
Building demolition has been around for decades. Sadly, it was initially used as a military tactic to gain an advantage over the enemy, and some countries even used home and building demolition as a form of punishment for legal offences.
However, when you see well-respected and highly regarded demolition experts performing strategic demolitions today, it’s clear to see we’ve come a long way. Now, people are intentionally demolishing structures for societal advancement.
However, if you’re curious about some of the most noticeable changes in this industry in recent decades, you’re in the right place. Learn more about some of these below.
Demolition As a Service
Demolition was often something people needed when their home had been destroyed in a disaster, such as a fire or an earthquake. While it’s still an essential service for these reasons, some homeowners actively seek out demolition teams to demolish homes for other reasons.
They might like a property’s location, its views, and the neighbourhood, but the home itself might not suit their needs. Rather than putting up with a property that doesn’t bring them joy, they request the services of a demolition company to flatten the home, take away the materials, and clear the site so they can build a new home in its place.
Building Deconstruction
When you picture demolition, you might imagine a giant wrecking ball slamming into the side of a building, turning a home into nothing more than splintered wood and concrete. While that still happens, some demolition companies also offer deconstruction.
Hydraulic mulchers are often brought in to mulch down building materials piece by piece, but other materials are carefully removed so they can be reused or recycled. The world as a whole has a significant construction waste problem, and deconstruction is an ideal way to combat it.
Materials that are in perfect condition and don’t need to be sent to landfills can be sold or donated to property owners looking to make cost-effective changes to their own homes.
Health and Safety Comes First
Health and safety wasn’t always a priority. It doesn’t seem like all that long ago business owners could do anything they wanted as long as they kept people employed. However, fortunately, those days are over.
Demolition teams are now made up of trained experts who put health and safety first and take all necessary safety precautions to keep themselves and others safe. Some of these safety precautions include wearing personal protective equipment, prioritising training and qualifications, keeping a clean work site, monitoring dust, noise, and vibrations, and performing risk assessments.
Asbestos Knowledge
There can be significant risks associated with demolition above and beyond the use of heavy machinery and falling building materials. While these, of course, pose risks, there’s also a hidden killer: asbestos.
Before a building can be demolished, trained and licenced asbestos removalists must be hired to remove all asbestos-containing materials. Failure to do so can mean that the asbestos materials are damaged, and the harmful asbestos fibres are released into the air. Once inhaled, these fibres can cause a number of life-threatening illnesses, such as cancer.
Demolition Methods
They say that practice makes perfect, and that might be true in the case of demolition methods. Sadly, sometimes it takes demolitions going wrong for industry experts to learn about best practices for undertaking demolition in particular environments.
Fortunately, we have plenty of demolition methods to choose from now and a plethora of studies and background information to help us decide which methods are best for which situations.
Some demolition companies rely on implosion, which is a type of demolition involving objects collapsing on themselves with the use of explosives. Sometimes, they fall like a tree, and, other times, they fall into their own footprint.
Some companies also use chemical demolition, which involves concrete demolition powder, while others opt for more mechanical methods, which involve the use of hydraulic excavators and other specialised mechanical equipment.
There’s also selective demolition, in which only specific parts of a building are demolished, and controlled demolition, where buildings are destroyed in a controlled, guided, and safe manner. This type of demolition is often achieved with diamond drilling and hydraulic concrete crunching.
Interior demolition, in which you remove the interior of a building, and strip-out demolition, where you reuse, refurbish, and recycle, are also becoming more popular with advanced equipment and techniques.
Trust Today’s Experts With Your Demolition Needs
Before you get your next demolition project underway, take a moment to consider what we’ve learned after decades of destroying buildings. It’s a job best left to the experts.
If you have a building to destroy to make way for an even better one, why not consult the experts? Demolition experts can take care of all the hard work so that you can sit back, relax, and enjoy the experience.