Tyler,
I am a one man shop with a medium sized skid steer and a farm tractor. Among other projects, I have demoed several farm buildings: barn, chicken coop and a two car garage. All were on one farm and we dug a pit and put all of the debris in the pit for burning. That is the sum total of my demo experience to date.
I am putting together pricing for demoing a similar sized house as the one you are describing on two city lots in a small town in West Texas. The job is about 75 miles from me. The customer wants the lot cleared of most of the vegetation (leave 3 cactus clumps and 2 trees). This is the first phase of the project. Then he wants the old house removed (phase 2).
Clearing the vegetation off the lot is easy for me as most of it is small trees and brush with a little trash thrown in. I can do it all with my skid steer and the debris should fit in a single 30' roll off dumpster. The customer said he would provide the dumpster at his expense. I think I can do it in a day. I will base my price for this on my hourly rate for me and my machine plus mileage.
Phase 2 (demoing the house) is a little more problematic. First of all the 550 sqft wood frame house sits on a basement. For that reason I think I will have to rent an excavator. My plan is to remove the house and put the debris in two or three 30 yd roll off dumpsters. Then I will cave the basement in on itself up to about 2' below grade and back fill with dirt compacted in 6" lifts. I have checked with the city about required permits and gotten their blessing on the demo plan. I have checked with the landfill, they were kind enough to go by and look at the house for any asbestos or other hazardous materials that would preclude dumping in their landfill (there was none). I am anticipating this phase of the project will take 2 days and 2-3 30 yd roll offs. Again the customer has said that he will provide the roll offs. I will also ask him to provide the fill dirt needed to finsih the basement.
As I said, since this house sits over a basement and I can't leave any organic material in the basement (per the city) I will need an excavator to do the job. Around here excavators with a thumb are scarce as hens teeth. I have found one 3 ton machine with a thumb from a local rental yard which according to the guys over on the Heavy Equipment Forum (Demolition) is to small to be effective. According to them I need a 15 ton or larger machine. I had great hopes of finding a 5 ton machine which would fit on my trailer but so far, no joy. I have found a 25 ton machine with a thumb that I can rent but with the delivery/pickup cost it blows the project cost out of the water.
By the way, you should take a look at the Demolition section of the Heavy Equipment Forum
Demolition . There is a lot of good information about demo (large and small and pricing) on that forum. I posted this project on that forum and have gotten a number of excellent replies. They pointed out several things that i had not considered.
Other issues that apply to my situation but may or may not apply to yours are:
The need to protect the public from harm. Since this house is in a residential area, likely with small children in the area, I have included in my proposal the fencing with safety fence of the area (approximately 400' of safety fence). Since the basement will likely be open overnight, I may also hire a night watchman to guard the site during the nighttime hours. This is not a requirement by the city or any other authority ( they are perfectly willing to give you enough rope to hang yourself) but just prudence on my part.
Another issue is insurance. Again this is not required by the city or any other authority but prudence dictates that for me, on this project, I have at least General Liability. Fortunately, I have found an insurance broker that will sell a GL policy by the project.
Contractors General Liability Insurance . (I have no ties to this company) I am sure this mode of buying insurance is not for everybody, but it suits me as I do only a few jobs a year that require liability insurance and I am not as limited as to what I can do as a with a traditional GL policy. For this project, their quote is about $350.00. Kinda high, but not as high as thousands of $'s annually for one who only does a few jobs in a year.
I don't think I would treat this like just digging a ditch or a hole in the ground. There are a lot of other things at play here. As is typical with threads like this, pricing recommendations (which is really what you asked for) are usually all over the board. The information I got from the guys on the HE forum is that the typical price range for this type of Demo is $4-$5/sqft. This from people that have the right equipment and experience to do the job. After putting the pencil to it, I am finding that on this project, I am way higher than that range. Even with the customer picking up the cost of the dumpsters and the extra dirt that will be needed to finish back filling the basement. I am going through my costs carefully before taking it to the customer to see if I can pare it down some but in the end, the price will be based on my costs plus a reasonable profit margin. If I don't get the job because I am too high, so be it. I won't take a job that I know I am going to lose money at.
I know this is a long post but I hope there is some information in it that will be useful to you. Again, check out the HE Demolition forum. Much good information over there.
Best of luck to you,
Tim
