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.

More Brickwork

Even though I have decided to get an excavator in, I took down some more bricks today. The reason being is that about half of the windows don't have steel lintels, they are resting on the window surround frame. Most of the doors also fit into this category. I have worked out that if the wood is cedar, it probably has a lintel, if it is solid hardwood, it is bearing.

I finished removing all of the painted wood that I plan on removing before demolition of the rest of the brick work. The next step is the floor boards.

The guy out the back, Brad, suggested I give his mate with an excavator a call. I'll do that on Monday I think.

Tiles All Gone

Today was a bit of a catch up day. I wanted to dispose all of the tiles yesterday, but I ran out of time. Anyway yay! all done.

I'm still trying to judge how much my vehicle can carry. I'm sort of using the rear mud flaps as a guide. I guess I try to make sure that are only just touching the ground. But this is a bit harder on sloping grassy ground. Anyway, I did realise that I probably was carrying too much when it took ages to get going from a hill start at a traffic light (without a hand brake). I generally don't do handbrake starts - never really needed to - I have not done one in ages. But I have been practising in case I over load my vehicle again. The Ute has one of those console twist hand brakes - It is sure weird using it to do a handbrake start.

From experience, I have a check list to determine if your vehicle is over loaded
1) Your mud flaps are dragging on the ground.
2) When you brake to a stop, your vehicle noticeably recoils.
3) You need to use second gear going up a hill in which you would normally use forth.
4) Neighbours make sarcastic comments to you.

Anyway, I really not too concerned about overloading my vehicle from a point of view of damaging it. The reason being is that you see plenty of pictures of over loaded vehicles in third world countries. I'm more worried about causing an accident with some P plater cutting in front of me.

Hot day

Today I just did three trips to the tip - tiles - I'm still amazed how much my ute can carry. There were no queues and I didn't have to wait. I thought it was a fluke the first time. On the third trip, I beckoned the attendant to speculate. He replied wryly that it was 44 degrees. Hmmm, make sense, … lucky I was wearing a hat .... I went on my way.

Life Experiences

Today I wanted to experiment.

I wanted to find out whether indeed I needed to bring an excavator in to demolish the house. The outside walls came off very easily. However the inside walls, bound together with render didn't want to move too much. So I tried using the 'jack' technique. The 'jack' technique isn't one invented by Jack, but rather a technique that uses a car jack to create stresses in the walls by lifting them up.

I first tried lifting up the wall from the top of the window. This worked too well - a crack soon formed not only along the window's wall but the adjacent walls as well. I was committed - leaving the wall with a half an inch gap in it is asking for trouble. I continued to jack it up, but it didn't fail until I prodded it fairly firmly with a 3m length of wood. Down it came with a huge plume of dust.

This aroused my neighbour, who I know, and he and his mate raised a couple of eyebrows. I started to offered an explanation, but with every so slight anger, he proceeded to inform me how disappointed my wife would be if I killed myself.

Now this leads to a philosophical observation about life. Life is a collection of experiences.

I think I will get an excavator in.

1949

I found a paper dating back to April '49 under the lino. That makes the house 60 years old! They had a car section with the latest innovation - front suspension! There was also an article about the necessity to teach sex to kids as young as 5. Now I know who spawned all that flower power in the 60s! I finished removing the wood from the roof timbers.

No roof

I got a lot done today. I took the chimney down brick by brick - only took half an hour or so. I think gravity did most of the work. Half of the ceiling timbers are down - I love the huge sky light - very bright. A couple of people came by and asked if there was any work going.

Water Meter Attack!

I got to Freshwater early this morning and discovered that there had been a pre-dawn attack and my house had been pelted with brand new water meters. The building didn't suffer much damage but the water meters were slightly bruised. I gathered them up put them out the front of my place. Someone might ring me up to get them back.

I noticed that the chimney had become a little bit precarious. I took a photo.

I measured the building up to the top layer of bricks 3.9m yay - no demolition license required for a mechanical excavator!

Roof is slowing coming off

The roof is slowly coming off. It is taking time because I am denailing the wood and stack it out the back. It has been quite easy to take the roof apart. I just use the crow bar. Fortunately none of the wood has been so heavy that I can't manage it myself.

Swimming

After a long day, with dust, water and grime, I've been making a habit of going for a swim in the sea - 10 minute walk. Very effective.

It cost me $92 dollars to dispose of the asbestos. I used the wet method to remove it all - didn't have much - very narrow eaves and the bathroom had a plaster ceiling. Took about half a day.

I also found that a demolition license from work cover (something that I don't need to get for a couple of reasons - ie I'm not a worker and the structure is less than 10m high and I'm demolishing using hand tools) would cost $2000. Ouch! No wonder why houses cost so much.

I'm thinking that maybe they want to encourage DIY demolition for environmental reasons. Lucky for them I'm a hard core, extreme environmentalist, extreme sports owner builder. Kimbriki took all of the unwanted, untreated, unpainted wood for recycling and for free! Something that would not be possible if I had used a demolition company.

Demolition Multiball

I've been busy, I'm alive and worn out. I can't wait to relax and get back to paid work for a few days. I'm having fun and the pictures below show what I have been up to.

You can see that I've put up my site security fence. Mike, my neighbour helped out. You can also see the temporary builders power. I also got a plumber to move the water meter and put in two garden taps. The gas was also removed. It is interesting that the gas comes through a clear plastic pipe that is protected using rusted metal plates.


I finished my back shed - well actually it is kind of an area that I can easily throw a tarp over. It works well - lots of ventilation when it is open. The toilet also works fine.

My new car fits down the side of the house - yay! It might not look too tight, but I had to bring in the side mirrors to fit. The car is great - 1.8m x 2.4m tray. 1.2 tons carry capacity and I can tow things as well. It is a diesel and you get 100km per 7.2L of fuel.

I found a 1965 edition of the sydney morning herald - going on about the Opera House.

I put the house tiles in the back room - I think there is around 6 tons of the things. My hands were killing me after moving them all. I moved them all into the back room because it was the only one with a concrete floor. I took a ton out to Kimbriki - they only charged me 11 dollars and they made me go through the weigh bridge.

I love exposed beams! All that lovely hardwood ready to be re-used. I find that over the years I have become less afraid of heights but my balance is degenerating. A recipe for disaster I'm sure. I think people are taking bets as to when I will seriously injure myself. But hey - I wear a hard hat and I am compliant, as far as I can tell, with the law. Work cover, the mob that creates rules around working safely, does not apply to me because I'm not working (in a legal sense). I'm participating in the extreme sport called "owner building". I'm also an extremely hard core environmentalist - I recycle as much as I can - nothing wrong with that!

The sarking took a while to come off.

I tried to gently lower the tiles down from the ceiling. Really was a waste of time. The pulleys worked well though.

Shed with Louvers

One of the things I did this weekend was put the louvers up.
As you can see, it looks quite fancy.