Building Demolition Contractors

There are four common types of demolition – implosion, high reach arm, wrecking ball and selective demolition.

1. Implosion: Implosion involves explosives that will knock out a building’s primary vertical supports. This will cause the building to collapse from the inside out. This is usually used for large structures in urban areas, but because of its explosive nature, implosions are used only 1% or less in structural demolition projects.

2. High reach arm: This method of demolition is usually for structures of more than about 20 metres high. It uses an excavator that is fitted with a long demolition arm that consists of three sections. Demolition tools are attached to the end of the arm and will be used in disassembling the building from top to bottom.

3. Wrecking ball: Other than implosion, wrecking ball is also a well-known method for structural demolition. Weighing up to 5 tonnes, this massive steel ball is suspended from a crane to be swung into a building. With gravity, inertia and its weight, it does an excellent job of bringing a building down. But because it causes a lot of debris, dust and other safety hazards, this method is not often used today.

4. Selective demolition: Selective demolition is an eco-friendly method that allows the reuse and recycling of the building’s materials for other projects. It uses safe and cost-effective procedures that will enable the recovery of reusable and recyclable materials. Since this requires selective interior and exterior demolition, it also requires more time and labour than the other methods.