Green Tips for an Environmentally Friendly House Demolition

Posted on: 11 January 2018

There are a lot of reasons you might be planning to demolish a house. Perhaps there's structural damage that's too extensive to reasonably repair, or maybe you've outgrown your current home and it makes more financial sense to rebuild than it does to move. Whatever your reason, it's easy to focus on the rebuild rather than the demolition.

With a surprising number of variables at play when it comes to house demolition, it pays to spend some time carefully deciding how you want the process to go. This is particularly the case if you're concerned with environmental impact. Here are some tips to make sure your house demolition is a green one.

Recycle as much as possible

When you demolish a house, some of the materials will either be buried or go to landfill sites, but there's a lot of material and even whole building parts that can be reused or recycled. Talk to your demolition company and ask what their recycling policy is.

If you have your doubts about whether or not the demolition team are recycling as much as they can, don't be afraid to speak up. Your feedback could change their future practices and make their whole operation more environmentally friendly. If needs be, arrange some recycling bins and recover whatever materials you can.

Maximise manual dismantling

There are large parts of buildings that will need to be demolished using machinery, but there's still a lot of work that can be done by hand.

Although it takes longer and might be a little more expensive, dismantling rather than indiscriminate demolition reduces the reliance on machinery, bringing down carbon emissions. It also helps ensure everything that can be recycled is seen and saved rather than just being destroyed.

Leave what you can

At the planning stage of your demolition, you should spend some time considering what needs to be destroyed. Bringing down the entire house and any outbuildings is tempting because it gives you a clean slate to start over. But is it really necessary?

If there are any parts of the main building or any other structures that can be incorporated into the new building, it makes the whole process greener. It might even save you some money, too.

Minimise work days

It should go without saying that there are no circumstances under which demolition work should be rushed. But careful organisation can reduce the number of days where the demolition team are working. This means fewer trips to and from the site, which means a lower carbon footprint for the overall project.

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