What decides the cost of taking a house down
How much it costs to demolish a house is the first thing everybody asks and the last thing anybody can answer sight unseen. Two houses the same size on the same street can be two different jobs. Here is what actually moves the number, and what you can find out yourself beforehand.
Why we do not give a figure sight unseen
The things that move the number are the things nobody can see from the street.
Not because we are being cagey. Because a number given blind gets corrected once somebody is standing on the property, and a corrected number is worse for you than a day’s wait.
The things that move the figure most are the things you cannot see from the street or describe accurately without standing there: what is under the house, what the walls are actually made of, how a truck reaches the lot, and what has to stay standing around it. Somebody has to look. That visit is the difference between a quote and a guess.
Why the same square footage is not the same job
Four things swing the number on a teardown, and floor area is not the biggest of them.
What is under it
A full basement, a crawl space and a slab poured on grade are three different jobs once the structure is off them.
Old footings often run wider than the walls did. Whether the foundation comes out or stays in the ground changes the machinery, the load count and the days.
What it is built of
Timber frame, brick, block and masonry all come apart differently and weigh very differently once they are down.
Weight is what fills trucks, and trucks are what the disposal half of the number is made of.
How the lot works
One driveway, one route across the property, and a fixed number of truck movements a day.
Two identical houses, one on an open corner and one at the back of a narrow lot, are not the same job and never price the same.
What has to stay
A shared wall holding up the house next door. A boundary. A driveway surface the owner is keeping. A mature tree.
Supporting and protecting what stays is planned work with its own hours in it.
The fastest way to a real figure is a visit.
Tell us the address and what is standing on it. The rest we work out on the property.
The half of the price that leaves on a truck
People think of demolition as the machine. Most of the cost is what happens after the machine stops: the volume and the weight of what is now lying on the lot, and how many movements it takes to get it off.
That is why a house that comes apart quickly can still be an expensive job, and why the access question comes up on every page of this site. It is also why we quote the clearing with the demolition rather than as a second job, so the figure you are given is the figure for an empty, level lot.
What decides the date, which is a different question
The waiting is usually before the crew arrives rather than after.
Price and start date do not move together, and on a teardown they usually have different answers.
The date is set by what has to happen before a machine can start. The services have to be off, which is arranged with the utility company and is the single most common reason a job waits. Anything staying up has to be supported. Where a wall is shared, the neighbours have to be told what is happening and when.
Once those are settled, the work itself runs in four stages and the length of it is decided by the size of the structure, how much has to come apart by hand rather than by machine, and how many truck movements the access allows in a day.
What you can work out yourself
Six things worth knowing, and none of them required.
None of this is required. All of it makes the visit shorter and more useful.
Roughly how big the house is and how many floors. What the outside walls are made of. Whether there is a basement, a crawl space or a slab. Whether anything is still connected to it, and whether anyone is still using it. Whether it is attached to the house next door on either side. How a truck would get onto the lot, and what stands next to it.
What you do not know, we work out on the property. Nobody has ever been turned away for not knowing what is under their own house.
Questions people ask first
Can I get a price without a visit?
We can tell you what a job like yours involves and what will move the number, and often that is enough to know whether to go further.
We do not quote a figure before we understand what is under the house, what it is built of and how the lot works, because a figure that ignores those things changes later. The address and what is coming out are enough to get a visit arranged.
How much does it cost to demolish a house?
It comes down to four things: what is under it, what it is built of, how the lot works, and what has to stay standing around it.
Two houses with the same floor area on the same street can differ by a factor of three once somebody has stood on both lots. That is not a hedge, it is the actual shape of this work, and it is why the visit exists.
How long does it take to demolish a house?
The work runs in the same four stages every time: the survey, the utilities off, the take down, and clearing the ground.
What decides the length is the size of the structure, how much of it has to come apart by hand rather than by machine, what is under it, and how many truck movements the access allows in a day. The waiting is usually before the crew arrives rather than after.
Does the price include getting the material off the lot?
Yes. Taking the building down and clearing the lot are one job here rather than two, and the clearing is quoted with the rest.
The figure you are given is the figure for a level, empty lot with nothing stacked on it.
Start with someone on the property
Tell us the address and what is standing on it. You will know what the job involves before you decide anything.