What type of buildings do you demolish within the city of Cardiff?

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We are a highly experienced demolition company. We have been demolishing a wide range of different buildings for over 30 years now. This could range from demolishing, let’s say, a fire-damaged steel factory, right through to demolishing a large 5-bedroom house in Cyncoed area of Cardiff.

Therefore, we thought it would be a good idea to write a whole article explaining the different types of buildings we can demolish.

 

Large factories

All over South Wales, there is a large number of factories, warehouses, commercial buildings, like shops which need demolishing by our team of Cardiff demolition experts.

Sometimes, these might be Victorian factories, so they are made from bricks and stone, with wooden A-frame to make the roof.

More modern factories often use a steel frame- therefore they will need a powerful excavator, such as a huge 50 ton Hitachi excavator, with a steel shear, to cut through the steel RSJ’s and angle iron, like a hot knife cuts through butter. If these buildings need to be demolished, we can use a wide range of different excavators, ranging from high-reach excavators, to much smaller 10-ton excavators fitted with a demolition attachment called rotor grab, which can pick up the steel quickly.

 

Commercial buildings- we can demolish any type of commercial building

Sometimes, when a new company takes over the lease of a commercial building, such as a large warehouse say in Cardiff Docks, they need the racking and the internal buildings to be demolished. This is so they can make the building ready for when they will rent the factory. We can therefore bring in a small excavator, or many of these, such as using Kubota diggers, which can take down the internal racking, we can also demolish internal buildings.

For example, there might be a staff canteen area, made using breeze blocks, that needs to be demolished via a demolition excavator, so that the warehouse is just brought back to the four outer walls. We can complete this work for you.

Residential demolition

Because Cardiff is a capital city, it’s very built-up area, which has many houses, apartments, and garages. We can demolish any residential building; for example, you might want a three-bedroom home to be demolished, so that you can make way for a brand-new house that might have over seven bedrooms.

 

Demolition and Crushing

Sometimes, a commercial building, such as a warehouse or a factory, must be crushed using say an Extec crusher, these are fantastic crushers. This means that the giant jaw crusher needs to be brought onto the demolition site, and then the stone aggregates, such as the stone, the brick, and the breeze blocks, need to be fed into the crusher and made into hardcore.

We can, therefore, demolish any building and crush it for you.

 

Would you like a demolition quotation?

If you plan on demolishing a building anywhere in Cardiff, why not call our demolition company?

We can demolish houses, warehouses, and factories, whether made from stone, brick, or steel. We also aim to recycle as much as possible.

If you would like a demolition quotation, why not call us today?

Things to think about when choosing a demolition contractor

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Date: 10/02/2024

 

Whether it’s a commercial or a residential building that needs demolishing, great care must be taken when demolishing the building. For example, which size excavator you plan on using, and also what demolition equipment is needed needs to be carefully considered.

It’s essential to have detailed, well-written method statements and risk assessments in place as well, this to plan the demolition works out, before demolition takes place. Whether it’s a house, factory or warehouse that’s being demolished, its important to write demolition method statements.

 

Have a look to see If the demolition contractor has undertaken similar demolition contracts:

There’s no point in hiring demolition contractor, that only has experience of demolishing houses, when it’s a large industrial factory that needs demolishing.

This type of demolition is entirely different; as a matter of fact, you need specialist demolition equipment, such as metal shears to cut through steel buildings. Therefore, you will need a demolition contractor that has experience demolishing this type of building.

 

 

Are you crushing the stone or taking it away?

It’s essential to carefully consider whether it would be best to crush the bricks, stone and rubble onto the demolition site.
To do this, often a demolition company will often use a “jaw crusher”.

Alternatively, you might use eight-wheeler lorries, for example, a Mercedes eight-wheeler lorries, to take the stone away?

The reason why it’s so important to consider whether you are crushing, or taking the stone away from the demolition site, is because if you’re taking the rubble away, this will burn a lot of extra diesel to do this.

For example, transporting 10, 8- wheeler loads and driving it some distance will burn a lot of diesel.
However, if the demolition company also has a good quality jaw crusher, or they can hire a crusher in to do the crushing and then you can crush the aggregates to the site.

This often means that a lot less diesel is consumed, which is obviously better for the environment.

 

Experience

Just as a highly experienced carpenter visualises how they will craft something out of wood, and plan how they will build something, well a highly experienced and knowledgeable demolition contractor, needs to plan there demolition work out as well.

The demolition company will need to write a method statement, this is to detail how they are going to demolish the building.

This should be written as a step by step guide for how they plan on safely demolishing the building.

Whether it be a hotel, factory or a house, a method statement needs to be written.

For example, it could be a front elevation of the building that’s particularly close to a very busy footpath.

Therefore, careful consideration will need to go into how to demolish the building in a way that causes minimal disruption to the general public, so that the building can be safely demolished.

Site managers

Whichever demolition company you hire in the U.K, whether it’s a company to demolish a power station, somebody to demolish an airport, or perhaps even a demolition company to demolish a huge range of metal factories, which might span multiple acres.

It’s essential to hire a company which has highly experienced demolition management.

We have some most highly experienced demolition managers, not just in Wales, but in the whole of the United Kingdom.

Some of our demolition managers now have 30 years of experience demolishing and decommissioning industrial, commercial, and residential buildings.

Therefore, to hire a highly competent and experienced demolition team, why not call us today?

Why dust suppression is so essential on a demolition sites

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When demolishing any building, it’s absolutely essential to consider dust suppression. Dust, also known as “silica”, causes a wide range of health problems. Therefore, demolition contractors must carefully consider how they will suppress the dust that’s generated on demolition sites.

Dust can be created at many different points during the demolition process. For example, dust can be created during the demolition phase, when lorries are being loaded, or the stone, rubble and bricks are being loaded into what’s called the “hopper” of a jaw crusher.

The good news is that whatever company is undertaking the demolition, whether it be a house demolition or a vast factory, there is a lot of demolition equipment to make the suppression an absolute piece of cake. There are now water cannons which can blast water high up into the air, making it easy to suppress the dust.

 

 

How do demolition contractors suppress dust on demolition sites?

Well, in the past, demolition contractors have sometimes used redundant and old fire engines. This is quite effective. However, as more and more quality demolition equipment has become available and is made by various manufacturers, and many companies now manufacture specialist water cannons.

These water cannons can shoot water high into the air and produce a fine mist.

When you consider on demolition sites, a wide variety of dust can be put into the air.

For example, it could be fibreglass, it could be dust when breaking stone or concrete, or it could even be dust created by woodworms that have eat away at all the roof rafters causing fine wood dust.

Therefore, these water cannons are needed to blast water into the air to suppress all of that dust.

Demolition contractors must use dust suppression on demolition contracts, not just in built-up areas but all on all demolition contracts.

Even if there’s a demolition, say, of a factory, and let’s say the building is in a countryside location, so there are not many residential houses nearby, dust suppression should still be used even if the Cardiff demolition contract, is not in a built-up area.

Dust suppression is not just needed to help protect the general public from the dust. It’s also to help protect the workers on the demolition site as well.

Whether it’s the labourers, the demolition excavator drivers, or perhaps the people who watch the crusher to make sure there are no blockages in the hopper, they will need dust suppression so that the demolition staff does not breathe in the dust as well.

 

 

Have you demolished many buildings?

Yes, we have demolished many structures and buildings. This could range from simply taking down a galvanised steel chimney to demolishing a giant factory or demolishing a single residential house.

It’s essential to consider what type of dust suppression is needed on all of these demolition contracts.

We have vast experience demolishing a massive range of different buildings.

If you have any questions about our demolition services, why not give us a call? We will be happy to help you.

What types of excavators / diggers are used on demolition contracts?

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Every demolition contract is slightly different and therefore different excavators / diggers will be needed—such as an industrial demolition contract will often need much larger excavators. Sometimes huge high-reach excavators will be needed, sometimes a mini-digger will be needed for internal demolition, so a wide range of excavators are often needed.

Therefore, the demolition company must carefully select suitable excavators, the use the correct size machine is important, and ensures that we safely demolish the building.

Whether the building is huge hotel or a house, we have the demolition excavators to demolish any type of building. We use Hitachi excavators, these are brilliant and powerful machines.

Once equipped with the right demolition attachments, we can demolish any type of building.

 

Commercial demolition

We have demolished a vast range of buildings, ranging from steel warehouses / factories through to houses. Therefore, we need to use a range of different excavators, ranging from 10-ton machines, up to 50-ton excavators.

Therefore, we use various excavators, whether the Cardiff demolition requires a huge building to be demolished, such as a large factory, a warehouse, or a light industrial unit- here at South Wales Demolition Ltd, we can safely demolish any building.

Therefore, the different types of machines we can use are:

– Kubota mini-diggers
– JCB 3CX machines
– Large 30 ton machines
– Crushers

 

Different demolition attachments

Depending on the demolition contract, different demolition attachments need to be used.

Therefore demolition companies use the following demolition attachments:

– 360 Rotar grabs
– Hydraulic hammers
– Steel shears
– Crusher buckets

 

High reach demolition

Sometimes, a building will be so tall that a demolition machine, called a “high-reach excavator”, will be needed. Made by companies such as Kobelco or Hitachi, and there are many other manufacturers as well, these machines are very powerful.

Fitted with a huge arm, they can reach the top of most buildings, helping to safely demolish the building.

Then once the concrete has hit the ground, often it’s in small pieces. If it’s not, then a smaller excavator will be needed, fitted with what’s called a hydraulic hammer; this will hit the concrete and break it into smaller pieces.

Then the concrete rubble can finally get fed through a jaw crusher, then the hardcore can stay on the demolition site, ready for the construction company to use it in the foundations of the new building.

 

Crushers

Whether it’s an industrial, commercial, or domestic demolition contract, different jaw crushers will be suited to crushing certain different types of buildings.

Crushing has become massively popular with demolition contractors, and construction companies alike

The reason is the building can be crushed, and the hardcore can stay on the demolition site.

This way the hardcore can be used again when constructing the foundations of the new building.

Less lorries are therefore used to transport the stone waste away. Less diesel is also burnt, as less lorries are used, which is good for the environment.

If its a single house that’s being demolished in Wales, then a small crusher could be used. On a large industrial contact, a more larger crusher is often used.

For example, some crushers could easily exceed over 100 tonnes in weight; this might be a quarry crusher, for example, they could crush a massive amount of concrete, brick or stone per hour.

 

Have you got a demolition contract in Cardiff that is about to get underway?

If you are looking for a local demolition contractor, then why not call our business today?

We can demolish commercial buildings, residential and also industrial buildings.

We have been safely demolishing buildings for many years. We can supply crushers, excavators and the labour to demolish any type of building, so why not call us?

How much does it cost to demolish a building?

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When offering a customer a demolition quote, it’s essential that we consider the following factors when offering a quote. Within this article, we will walk you through the thought process our estimators use when pricing demolition contracts throughout the United Kingdom.

Walk around the demolition site

 

Walking around the building due to be demolished is essential, we therefore often need to walk both outside and within the building.
The main reason is that the demolition estimator can determine which excavators are needed and roughly how many personnel will be required to demolish the building.

How many excavators will be needed?

 

When working out a price for that particular demolition contract, the estimator must determine how many excavators will be required. For example, on some demolition contracts, it will be apparent that only one demolition machine will be needed.
However, on another demolition contract, multiple excavators might need to be required to safely demolish the building.

 

How far the building is located from recycling facilities

 

If a building is relatively close to a place where the aggregates / waste can be recycled, then the cost of the demolition can be lower.

However, if there multiple tipper lorries needed, that is, the eight-wheeler trucks, and they need to drive some distance before they can arrive at the nearest recycling facility, the cost of the demolition will need to increase.

This is because additional diesel and driver time will be needed to transport all that waste, brick, stone and breeze blocks to the recycling facility.

 

Which building materials need to be recycled?

 

Some building materials are much cheaper to recycle than others. For example, if it’s a concrete roof tile, it is much cheaper to recycle that roof tile, than other types of roof tile.

On the other hand, if the roof tile is made of asbestos, a specialist asbestos removal firm will need to come in and remove the asbestos before any demolition work can start.

How long will demolition staff and equipment need to be on-site?

 

It’s then down to the estimator to work out roughly how long the demolition equipment, such as the excavators and the crushers, will need to be left on site.

If the demolition equipment is needed for a long period of time, then this will increase the cost of the demolition.

Also, the estimator needs to calculate how many staff are required, and how much this will cost in terms of labour costs.

Therefore, if there is a lot of what they call soft stripping, which is removing the plasterboard, timber, and plastics from the building, this will substantially increase the demolition costs.

If the job doesn’t need soft stripping, perhaps it’s already been gutted, or the building is fire-damaged. Therefore, soft stripping the building is not required because the contents of the building may have been burnt, so sometimes, it is cheaper to demolish these types of buildings, as theres less waste.

Steel buildings

It is often cheaper to demolish steel-framed buildings, that’s because steel can be widely recycled.
For example, items such as copper cables, which are nonferrous and ferrous metals, can be recycled very easily.

Large excavators, fitted with a sheer, can cut through the metal and place it into awaiting recycling bins to be easily recycled.

We specialise in demolishing steel buildings, such as large factories, warehouses, and retail buildings.
Often, these commercial buildings need giant excavators; that’s to safely pull the building to the floor. We have large machines capable of demolishing large steel factories, and other types of buildings.

Therefore, if you would like a demolition quote, why not call our Cardiff demolition company? South Wales Demolition Ltd has been providing good quality demolition services for a very long time. We can demolish anything from steel buildings to domestic buildings such as houses.

We also offer free quotations and aim to get your quote back to you within seven days with a quote. So we are the company to call, whether it’s a giant factory, that’s incurred fire damaged, or perhaps just a single house that needs demolishing and crushing. We can bring the excavators and the crushers to demolish any building safely.