5 Signs You Shouldn't Approach Home Demolition on Your Own
Posted on: 11 July 2017
If you need to demolish part or all of your home, it may be tempting to do it yourself. After all, who can't grab a sledge hammer and take down a house? It's easy right? Actually, demolition is harder than most people realise. Here are five signs that you shouldn't do your own demolition.
1. You Don't Have Experience
This is especially important when it comes to internal demolition. In particular, if you want to open up an area by removing a wall, you need to ensure that you don't remove any load bearing parts. A sledge hammer through the wrong support beam and your entire upper floor could start sagging into the ground floor.
Without experience and extensive knowledge about structural engineering, you may accidentally turn a partial demolition into a full home demolition. If that's not your intention, that could be disastrous.
2. Your Home Has Potential Toxins
Through the years, all kinds of toxins have been used in home building, and doing a demolition may expose you to those toxins. If you believe there is asbestos or lead in your home, you should contact a demolition professional. They have remediation techniques that can get rid of those toxins safely.
Additionally, in some cases, you may be legally required to have a remediation professional. In particular, let's say you have lead paint on the outside of your home. If you tear down the home on your own, that paint will just flake into the air, potentially affecting everyone in the area. A professional can basically put a tent over the entire structure to prevent that from happening.
3. You Don't Want to Cover Your Neighbours in Dust
If you are doing a full demolition, that generates a lot of dust and debris. If you have neighbours, you may end up coating their homes and lawns in dust. Professionals have strategies to avoid that. Namely, they use controlled demolition to keep the process relatively contained.
4. You Don't Want to Take Physical Risks
Demolition often involves dealing with sharp pieces of metal, old nails and other potential dangers. If you don't want to get hurt, you may want to have a professional deal with those risks. If you do decide to do your own demolition, make sure that you wear personal safety gear like gloves designed for working with metal and a hard hat to protect yourself from falling debris.
5. You Don't Want to Deal With Disposal
Of course, demolishing the home is just the first step. Then, you have to cart away all that waste and rubble. A demolition expert rolls that into the cost of the demolition. If you do it on your own, you have to arrange multiple skips or trucks to haul it all away.
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