Park View

I did some more demo this morning. You can see from the park side, the house is almost gone. I took the cast iron bath to the tip - still heavy.

Cracked Driveway

Today I noticed that the driveway has begun to crack up. An obvious explanation is the ute. Hmm... more evidence I should not overload the vehicle.

Most of the floor boards survived being pounded by bricks. I did another 6 loads today.

The tip people have started asking questions about what I am doing. I suggested if they have any concerns, they should ring the "24-hour National Security Hotline" on 1800 123 400. Only joking, I told them that I am an owner builder demolishing my own house - sating frustrations.

I was a bit wary about telling people what I am doing. Most people don't think it is a good idea/very dangerous/work cover will be over me very quickly. But I have relaxed a bit since most of it is gone.

I removed the cast iron bath tub today - really heavy.

Wednesday Demo

I got more done than I expected today. I still only did 6 loads, but I have completely removed the bricks of most of the walls I knocked down on Monday. I even had to start the demo of the fire place to give me something to do on Saturday.

More morning demo

I did another two hours of demolition this morning. You can start to see right through the house now. Only the front two rooms are now fully intact. I broke my small hand mallet this morning. Despite the blue sky, it was raining pretty hard this morning. I also put Chris's hundred or so bricks out the front ready for him to collect.

11 Loads

I took today off to do some more brick work. I picked up 6 loads on Thursday. This includes most of the bricks I demolished on Monday. I took a picture of the brick pile at the recycling centre. They use the recycled bricks and concrete mainly as road base. A guy inspects each load to make sure it is of sufficient quality - ie no asbestos, organic matter or dirt.

I posted a question on a building forum regarding how much of a demolished building actually gets recycled. The answer is bugger all. The problem is is that during the demo, a 25 ton excavator mixes up the stuff too much so it becomes useless to anyone. The only difference between it and normal garbage is that it probably would not smell.

I loaded up 5 loads of bricks on Saturday. I spoke to the neighbour across the road (Chris) - he wanted 100 bricks for a path.

Morning demo

I'm working late tonight so I though I might whip over for some quick hammer work. It took me 1.45 hours and I managed to knock down a couple of interal walls ready for a few runs to the tip.

I'm just using a small 2lb hammer until I get off the ladder and I move to a 5kg sledge hammer. I'm not real good on swing a sledge hammer from a ladder. I also find that sometime the sledge hammer just makes a fair neat round hole in the bricks if I try to take too much down.

I still don't feel the inclination to use any power tools.

Demo Day

I took today off to calibrate my estimate. It didn't start off too well as I arrived at the site at 8:30 - 1.5 hours late! Anyway, I managed to cart 4 loads of bricks and fill up my ute for an early morning run to the tip. The next day I did 5 trips. I average around 300 bricks per load - 6sqm.

I estimate I am between 15% to 20% done which is good. It kind of tallies with my estimate.

Estimated weight of bricks

I've estimated the weight of the bricks to be around 60 tons. This equates to 60 trips to the tip or 15 days or around 2 weeks. I've done 5 trips and it looks like I have already removed around 10% of the bricks. Is it worth doing it myself? It would definitely be cheaper.

There are about 49 bricks per square metre. Around 250 bricks per ton.

Of course I have the sandstone foundation blocks, the thin concrete slab, path and driveway and the floor boards.

The floor boards are a no brainer - lots of quality joists and bearers to salvage. I could re-use or sell the sand stone blocks. Time should not be an issue, suprisingly my de-construction work is not the critical path.

Removing More Window Frames

I remembered to bring my camera today. I removed around 5 tons of bricks mainly around window and door frames.



He is some pictures demonstrating the jack technique to remove a door frame. Once you jack up the door frame, cracks will appear. You might have to wait a few minutes after pumping for the cracks to appear. The purpose of these cracks is to make it easy/possible to knock the bricks off. The bricks are held between each other. Take a small one hand mallet and gradually break the bricks off – one brick at a time style. For safety use an extension bar to jack up the jack and a sturdy ladder to wield your mallet.

I though about using a power tool, but it is not really worth it as one blow easily removes a few bricks. It took me about 5 minutes to remove the bricks below. Also there is less dust, noise and besides it is kind of fun.