Since the property I worked at had just been purchased, there were a plethora of structures on the piece of land that needed to be taken down. And demolished. They were all in very bad shape and not usable anymore. I had not worked a lot in demolition before, and it was so interesting to learn how to properly take things down and apart.
The four big projects we had in regards to demolition were a shop, a shed, three larger buildings, and a white house.
The shop.
This building was one of our first jobs on the site. The building was old, had eroding wood, and was full of treasures! We cleaned out the shop; collecting old metal scraps, car pieces, tools and trash we began to sort through everything that was left in the shop from the previous owner. There was so much stuff! We wore masks on our faces for the old dust that has been festering in the shop for quite some time. The process of cleaning out the shop was long and lasted a great time, but it had to be done before we demolished it. We tore off the wood sides of the barn as well - having to take out each old rusted nail! It took major patience! Once we had our piles outside of the shop of wood, metal and trash, we were set to use one of the many tractors we had on site, to pull apart the shop. This building was the biggest out of all that we demolished. It was quite something to see it fall to the ground! It turned in to a huge messy pile. Once it was knocked down, we had to go in there carefully and pull off the metal tin roofing from the wood. This was a job that lasted multiple days.
A shed.
This building was on the opposite side of the property on the other side of the white house. The shed was much easier in comparison to the shop. It was much smaller than the shop and did not have anything we needed to take out from inside. We used the Gradall tractor to pull off the roof first and drove it over, in as much as one piece as we could, and placed it in a new wood pile. Then we knocked down each wall and tore it apart! We tried to be efficient by keeping the wood pile in one area, as we had three more little sheds next to this one that we needed to take down as well.
Three buildings: Dusty, Rusty.
This demolition project was quite productive only lasting a couple days. Three small sheds were in a row next to the first shed. All these needed to be taken down because the ranch owner had no use for them. These little sheds were quite dusty and we had to first prep one of them before we tore it down. This was the chicken coop shed. It had chicken wire and rusted nails that needed to be taken apart so we could separate the metal from the old wood.
The White House Extravaganza.
At Beaver Creek IZ, there was an old house from 1892. The ranch owner was going to save the house and just restore its foundation and touch it up. However, this would cost a huge sum of money and the maintenance required to keep it up and running would be tons of work as well. The construction manager of the ranch informed the owner that the foundation is on a creek, so the house literally has an unstable foundation. He explained that the cost definitely outweighs the benefit of keeping the house and restoring it. The rancher owner went back and forth deciding what to do. One day, our team leader would say: "We're tearing down the white house!" And the team would get all prepared and excited to take down the old house. Then the next day, he would say: "Actually we're keeping it!" This carried on like this for about a week and a half. The ranch owner wanted to make sure that it was the best idea to tear it down. In the end he decided to do so, because he could then build a new house for his cowboys and it would be much more functional and practical.
So the demolishing process began!
For one whole day the team got to take out windows, take apart doors, take out trash, and punch holes in the wall if they felt like it. The house was coming down! And this job was after we had spent a few days taking out everything that was left from the previous owners. Like the shop, the white house had furniture, kitchen appliances and random house essentials that were left in the hands of IZ ranch.
The next step was knocking down the chimney. This was the first demolition move from a tractor. One of the team members used the Gradall to tear apart the rock chimney.
We then took turns tearing apart the different walls.
It was amazing watching our team leader maneuver the Back Hoe to take off walls. We learned there was technique in taking down a house. There were multiple levels in the house, and it was so old that you have to be careful. Also, if you want an organized pile of the demolished house in the end, then going slow is key.
We took a whole day demolishing the white house. It was very exciting at the end of the day to see our pile of destruction.
First step was the chimney!
Side lifted by the Gradall.
Starting to come down!
