Feature-length high reach…

June 26, 2019 Equipment, Video

Diggers & Dozers unveils 12-minute DSM epic.

About this time last year, we shot and uploaded a two minute film of DSM’s giant Caterpillar high reach excavator working in the company’s native Birmingham. 12 months on, that video has racked up more than 395,000 views making it the most popular episode of Demolition TV ever.

Despite the film’s popularity, we received dozens of requests for a longer form film. And so our buddies at Diggers and Dozers have done precisely that, producing a near 12-minute mini epic of the machine in action.

You can check it out below:

San Siro faces axe…

June 24, 2019 General

World famous soccer stadium to be demolished.

AC Milan and Inter are moving ahead with plans to demolish their famous San Siro stadium, Rossoneri president Paolo Scaroni has claimed.

Commonly known as San Siro for the district of Milan in which it is situated, the Giuseppe Meazza stadium is one of the most iconic grounds in European football.

It hosted matches at the 1990 World Cup, while it has also been the setting of four European Cup and Champions League finals, the most recent of which being in 2016, when Real Madrid beat Atletico Madrid 5-3 on penalties after a 1-1 draw.

Despite its status in world football, San Siro has long been regarded as in need of refurbishment, but the two Milan clubs are planning to rebuild it completely instead.

Speaking to Gazzetta dello Sport, Scaroni said: “Everything is proceeding.

“We will make a new San Siro together, next to the old one in the same area of land. The old man will be knocked down and in its place there will be new buildings built.”

Don’t spill any…

June 24, 2019 General

Delicate demolition to recover thousands of barrels of bourbon.

A Kentucky distillery says efforts are underway to recover thousands of barrels of bourbon at a massive storage warehouse that partially collapsed during a thunderstorm.

O.Z. Tyler Distillery in Owensboro said a section of the warehouse has been “successfully deconstructed” and the painstaking process of recovering barrels is moving ahead as part of an overall plan to eventually take down the entire building, called a rickhouse.

Distillery officials say the warehouse cannot be salvaged.

“We are very pleased with the progress moving into the weekend and realize it will take some time to remove all barrels from the site, but our first concern, and priority, is safety,” master distiller Jacob Call said in an update posted on the distillery’s website.

The deconstruction plan calls for a “controlled collapse” of the entire warehouse at some point, Call said.

No one was injured when part of the rickhouse collapsed. The distillery said “minimal leakage” of bourbon has been reported.

The distillery said 19,400 barrels were aging in the warehouse, including about 4,500 barrels in the storm-damaged section.

Barrels are being plucked from the warehouse with the use of an “ultra-high reach demolition excavator,” the distillery said.

Read more here.

DSM aids HS2

June 24, 2019 Video

Time-lapse film captures DSM high reach in action.

The HS2 high speed rail connection between London and Birmingham passes right by the equipment depot of Midlands-based demolition giant DSM. So it’s appropriate that the company should be involved in bringing this much-needed yet controversial project to fruition.

Bridge Busters at Bar Hill

June 24, 2019 Bridge, Video

Armac Group chalks up another successful bridge demolition.

Another weekend, another bridge and another text-book demolition by the Bridge Busters team at Armac Group. This time, the team took its immense firepower to a bridge over the A14 at Bar Hill near Longstanton. what more can we say?

Tinnelly tackles Tara Towers…

June 21, 2019 Video

Rising above the rest…

June 17, 2019 implosion, Video

Demolition drone video takes top prize.

North Carolina drone pioneer Nelson Aerial Productions has taken home first place in the Second Annual Engineering Drone Video of the Year contest held at AUVSI Xponential in Chicago, IL.

The video titled “The Big Boom” documents 10 separate building implosions across the United States. Of the 10 implosions, eight were for Greensboro, NC based D.H. Griffin Wrecking Company and two were for explosives demolition company, Pettigrew Inc., based out of Swedesboro, NJ.

Jordan Nelson of Nelson Aerial Pros was in attendance to receive the award. “Most people will never get to experience the raw power of an implosion. I love the challenge of telling the story from every angle,” said Nelson.

Nelson and his team utilize tens of thousands of dollars of camera equipment in the air and on the ground for any given implosion and spend days preparing and visualizing what those angles should be. The more notable implosions of the 10 in “The Big Boom” were the Georgia Dome in downtown Atlanta, GA; Lifeway Tower in downtown Nashville, TN; and Senate Plaza in Harrisburg, PA. Nelson filmed his 14th building implosion this past weekend in Lousiville, KY.

Read more here or, better still, view the award-winning film below:

The Big Boom from Nelson Aerial Productions Inc on Vimeo.

Woodward warns over degree course take-up…

June 13, 2019 Training

Former IDE President raises concern over ticking skills shortage time-bomb.

I am just back from the PlantworX 2019 exhibition in Peterborough where the final day of the show has been largely given over to students and at which skills and training has been placed at the very heart of the exhibition.

But I returned to a call from from Former IDE President John Woodward who – in response to our ongoing series of training podcasts – expressed major concerns about the entry levels of school leavers into the demolition industry.

Woodward said that apprentice uptake could be much better, as reported in our recent interview with another Former IDE President David Darsey. But he is particularly concerned at the lack of interest in the BSc course run jointly by IDE and the University of Wolverhampton.

“The IDE has worked extremely hard to find a route into the industry for school leavers wishing to enter an engineering route and the lack of uptake on the course starting in September this year is alarming. The demolition industry in the UK leads the world with innovation and we need new ideas and young blood to maintain that position,” he says. “Without an increase in numbers enrolling onto the course this year we could find this open door into demolition engineering will slam shut and we will lose forever the opportunity to have better educated management within the industry and the ability for industry peers to pass their wealth of knowledge to a new generation.”

Having been one of the key people that brought the degree to fruition, Woodward says he is concerned that a lack of take-up could threaten the future of the course.

“Don’t stand idly by and watch a great opportunity disappear forever,” he concludes. “Spread the word that degree entry is available and leads to a career in the most interesting industry around.”

Video – British bridge demolition…

June 9, 2019 Bridge, Video

Weekend possession condensed into four epic minutes.

A new film from Central Bedfordshire Council charts the recent weekend-long possession of the A421 Cranfield Road Bridge bridge demolition.

The project forms an integral part of the ongoing A42 Dualling Project that is expected to run until Winter 2020.

Video – Balletic blast…

June 9, 2019 implosion, Video

Stacks and boiler house fall with stunning symmetry.

A historic chapter for Louisville Gas and Electric Company ended yesterday when the company brought down the last standing portions — the boiler house and stacks — of the now retired coal-fired Cane Run Generating Station, located in the southwest corner of Jefferson County.