Demolition Disposal
It’s easy to imagine a building demolition: a small crowd is gathered around the fence that encircles the building that has lived to see its last day and a quiet hush falls over the crowd when the countdown begins. At “3,2,1” the atmosphere is tense and almost electric waiting to experience the sound and sight of thousands of tons of steel, concrete, drywall and insulation being imploded within seconds. BLAM! The building topples in on itself and a boom of applause fills the air. Now what? Well, that part is the simple part: now it’s time for disposal of hundreds of thousands of pounds of debris!
Demolition Waste
Demolition waste is abundant even when the building being demolished isn’t necessarily a huge skyscraper. Two to three story warehouses will still yield hundreds of pounds of debris to be hauled off per person on a demolition team. Luckily for the backs of such labor workers, there are tools and equipment that make the job less difficult. Demolition waste trailers can be affixed to trucks via hitch or using the 5th wheel system. These dumpsters usually are the largest volume per area available on the market because of the sheer amount of debris created through demolition. In addition to dumpsters, the following equipment is great for demolition:
- Bobcat backhoes
- Cranes
- Bulldozers
- Explosives
While industrial machines do the majority of the work, once the bits of debris are cleared, the team will still need to go through the rubble equipped with shovels and masks to dispose of the remaining particulate as well as to jack-hammer through the concrete foundation. In cases of buildings with asbestos, the team may be required to do a floor-by-floor demolition instead of using explosives to implode the building. Plan on spending exponentially more if you require deconstruction or floor-by-floor demolition.
Dumpsters for Large Volumes of Materials
Because of the nature of demolition projects, many dumpster trailers may be brought to one site for days following the implosion of a building. Dumpsters come in different sizes but all of them are measured by the cubic yard. Generally, the largest dumpster trailers that you’ll see will hold forty cubic yards of debris. The dimensions of a forty cubic yard dumpster trailer are twenty-three feet long, eight feet wide and seven feet tall. Even as massive as these transportable dumpster bins are, a fleet of several of them will need to be dumped and brought back for a mid-sized skyscraper demo project at least a handful of times before most of the waste is disposed.
Dumpster Rental Versus Purchase
The answer to whether purchase or rental of a dumpster trailer is simple to ascertain. If you operate a demolition company and you’re consistently doing jobs, you ought to purchase at least a couple of these valuable pieces of equipment. If you’re doing a DIY home demolition project for a wing of your home or business, rent a dumpster. Following this rule of thumb will save you tens of thousands of dollars.