House and Building Demolition
Complete structure removal, from the utility disconnect to the graded lot.
- THE JOB
- Taking a whole structure down and clearing the lot
- RESIDENTIAL
- Houses, additions, garages, porches and outbuildings
- COMMERCIAL
- Retail stores, offices, warehouses and light industrial
- ALSO
- Selective demolition, where part comes down and the rest stays up
- FOUNDATIONS
- Slab or piers broken out and hauled, not left in the ground
- BEFORE ANYTHING
- Utilities disconnected and signed off, permit pulled
- PRE-1980
- Asbestos survey first. It's required, and it sets the schedule
- THE DEBRIS
- Loaded, hauled and weighed in. Concrete and metal are separated out
- FINISHED STATE
- Flat, clear and graded, ready for whatever is next
- TIME ON SITE
- Two to five days for a house. Commercial depends on the frame
Every one of these jobs is priced from the property itself, so there is no figure on this page to mislead you.
251-415-4545Call and we will come and look at it. The estimate is free and you get it in writing.
A full teardown, start to finish
The demolition itself is the short part. Most of a structure job is what happens before and after it, and the order isn't negotiable.
Every utility gets shut off first, and each provider has to disconnect and sign off on its own service: power, gas, water and sewer. This is the step that sets the start date, because it depends on four organizations and not on us. It's the reason a demolition booked today doesn't happen this week.
We pull the permit while that's happening. If the structure was built before about 1980, an asbestos survey runs at the same time, and if it finds something, licensed abatement happens before anything is touched.
Then comes the machine work. The structure comes down in a controlled order instead of all at once, which keeps the debris where it can be loaded and keeps it off whatever is staying: the neighbor's fence, the power drop, the tree you're keeping, the driveway you want to reuse. Debris is loaded as it comes down instead of piled up and handled twice, and metal and concrete are separated because they go to different places.
The foundation comes out last. Slab, footings, piers, brick skirting, whatever the house was sitting on. Then the lot is graded flat and clean. If you want it built back up with fill, that's quoted with the job.
Selective demolition, when only part of it goes
Taking an addition off the back, removing a garage that's falling down, or clearing a fire-damaged wing while the rest of the building stays standing is different work from a full teardown, and it's a bigger share of what we do than people expect.
The hard part is protecting what stays. Where the two structures meet has to be cut cleanly, the exposed wall has to be made weathertight the same day, and anything the two share (a roof line, a chimney, a slab, a run of utility lines) has to be separated before the machine touches it. Load paths matter. A wall that was carrying weight is still carrying it until somebody deals with it.
If you're removing something in order to build, tell us what's going in its place. It changes where debris can be stacked, how the slab is cut, and whether the sub-base is worth keeping.
The hard part is protecting what stays.
Commercial buildings
Commercial demolition works on the same principles, with three things added.
The frame decides the method. A steel-framed warehouse comes apart differently from a masonry retail building, and the steel is worth real money, so it's separated and recycled instead of landfilled. A concrete tilt-up is another job entirely.
The site is usually still operating. Neighboring businesses stay open, a parking lot stays in use, a service road stays passable. Sequencing and site fencing matter more than they do on an empty residential lot, and so does the time of day the noisiest work happens.
There's also more paperwork. Larger commercial demolitions can come with notification requirements and a formal asbestos survey no matter what year the building went up. We handle that, and it's part of the reason the lead time is longer than for a house.
What it costs, and why that's on another page
The honest answer is long enough that it gets its own page. That page walks through every variable that moves the number, in the order they usually matter, and tells you which of them you can change before you call.
The short version is that floor area matters less than people assume. Foundation type, access, age and what's still inside the building move a quote more than a few hundred square feet do.
Questions we get asked
How soon can you start?
The utility disconnects set the date, not us. Once power, gas, water and sewer are disconnected and signed off and the permit is in, most residential jobs can be scheduled quickly. Get the disconnects started as early as you can.
Do you take the slab and footings?
Yes, that's standard. A demolition that leaves the foundation in the ground is a problem for whoever builds there next, and it's not what we quote.
Can you demolish one building and leave the one attached to it?
Yes. That's selective demolition, and it's a normal job. The care goes into the shared wall, the utility lines running between the two, and making the exposed wall weathertight the same day.
What happens to the materials?
Concrete and metal are separated on site. Metal is recycled, concrete goes to be crushed instead of to the landfill, and everything else is hauled off and dumped.
Do you do commercial as well as houses?
Yes. Retail stores, offices, warehouses and light industrial. The frame decides the method and there's more paperwork, so the lead time is longer.
Is the lot usable when you leave?
It's flat, clear and graded. If it needs to be built up with fill dirt for what you're putting there, that's quoted with the job.
Where we do this
We take this work anywhere in Mobile County, AL and Jackson County, MS, and the yard is in Theodore, so most of the territory is inside an hour.
Raised and pier-built houses are common along the bay and in the flood-prone parts of the county, and they are a larger job than their floor area suggests.
Service area
Mobile Theodore Tillman's Corner Grand Bay Saraland Satsuma Creola Chickasaw Prichard Semmes Wilmer Eight Mile Moss Point Pascagoula Gautier