Bid process under scrutiny.

A firm associated with former Pittsburgh Housing Authority employee Gabriel S. Fontana has been hired to do site demolition and reconstruction work related to that agency, including some that was competitively bid, some that was not, and some that was awarded through a process that has raised questions in the razing industry.

Fontana, who left the authority in 2003 following a Post-Gazette story about his 1998 guilty plea for conspiracy to sell cocaine and money laundering, is associated with a company that last year won a three-year, $1.6 million contract to train and supervise residents who will tend the authority’s grounds. That company, Pittsburgh Property Maintenance, was incorporated nine days before it bid on the contract.

Fontana’s demolition company, Three Rivers Dismantlement, was incorporated Oct. 31, 2011. It has done a handful of private demolition jobs since then, according to Bureau of Building Inspection online records.

Three Rivers Dismantlement has become involved in at least three Housing Authority jobs.

The first, a $117,750 contract to reconstruct a collapsed hillside in Homewood North, was competitively bid in a process that started in August, and Three Rivers Dismantlement was by far the lowest bidder. The second, for which the firm was paid $19,000 to replace a failed 8-inch water shut-off valve at Northview Heights, was awarded over the winter on an emergency basis with just Three Rivers Dismantlement’s bid.

Read more here.

Lack of a single agency results in gaps in public protection.

Communities across Scotland are still being exposed to toxic dangers from the demolition of old factories due to a loophole that was first highlighted more than a decade ago.

There is currently no one agency in overall control of such demolitions in Scotland – with even Holyrood ministers previously admitting to “gaps” in public protection.

Council planning officers, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) all have limited responsibilities but often fail to work together effectively.

The loophole was first highlighted in 2002 during the demolition of the former Motherwell Bridge steelworks in Uphall, West Lothian.

Campaigner David  Campbell-McIntosh, who lives 500 yards from the site, woke one morning to find the cars on his drive coated in a film of dust – which he says tested positive for cancer-causing asbestos.

The Scots engineering giant was later hit with a maximum £20,000 fine for “blatantly disregarding” health and safety rules and putting demolition workers in danger.

In 2006 local MSP Fiona Hyslop, then in opposition, attempted to change the law, warning: “Nobody takes responsibility for the health of the public when the process of demolition is being carried out.”

Read more here.

Multiple job opportunities with demolition’s rising star.

Warwickshire-based AR Demolition is on the expansion trail and has a host of job opportunities across its business.

The company, which recently landed the National Demolition Training Group Training Award, is one of the rising stars of the UK demolition industry and has just completed the highly-complex removal of the space deck canopy roof over London’s King’s Cross station.

The company is seeking candidates in the following key roles:

• Site Manager
• Contracts Managers
• Health & Safety Managers
• Demolition Machine Operators

Workers forced to leap to safety as shop topples.

Two Mamaroneck Avenue storefronts that were being demolished collapsed suddenly Tuesday, forcing workers on the roof to leap to safety.

No injuries were reported. The empty brick and cinderblock storefront at 130 Mamaroneck Ave. and one next to it collapsed on themselves at 11:54 a.m.

The collapse also took out the side wall of a third empty storefront. Six storefronts in all were vacant.

Fire Chief Robert Pecchia said workers were in the process of demolishing the building when the back left corner started collapsing.

“It was supposed to be a controlled collapse, if you will. It was just uncontrolled,” Pecchia said.

Read more here, or view the local news video below:

VTN’s Bauma video makes for interesting viewing.

As far as we can tell from the relative safety of Demolition News Towers, Bauma 2013 has been a big if unsurprising success with plenty of visitors but no announcements from out of left field.

But the show certainly has thrown up some good video content, including this one from attachment specialist VTN (sold here in the UK via ECY Haulmark).

It might be the top-notch animation, the subtle Barack Obama voiceover, or the fact that the film speaks to our long-held but rarely discussed air hostess fantasies, but we found this a great watch.

Crews brave “crazy weather” to carry out successful implosion.

Yesterday morning Xcel Energy crews took down a very familiar landmark in Cameo: the old power plant that was shut down.

Implosion took place at 7 Wednesday morning and wrapped up by 7:30 after Xcel crews and demolition specialist sent the stacks up in smoke.

After upgrading the plant to solar power panels, the plant was deactivated in December of 2011. Ultimately though, Xcel officials say the plant was outdated and didn’t keep up with newer plants.

“We built Comanche three, which is a 1000 megawatt coal plant down in Pueblo, and so when that was built, it made this power plant obsolete because of old technologies and efficiencies”, said Fred Eggleston of Xcel Energy.

Read more here, or view the video below:

First top-of-the-range Doosan DX700LC excavator sold in Germany

In a deal agreed at the Bauma 2013 Exhibition in Munich, Germany, Kafril & Reinwald Spezialabbruch GmbH, the leading demolition company based at Hohburg (OT Großzschepa) near Leipzig, has purchased the first top-of-the-range Doosan 71.5 tonne DX700LC crawler excavator in Germany. The order was secured by Doosan dealer, Ziesmann Baugeräte GmbH of Torgau and was celebrated in style at Bauma, next to the DX700LC excavator on the Doosan stand.

Jens Karnahl, Chief Executive Officer of Kafril & Reinwald Spezialabbruch GmbH, commented on the sale: “I have visited Doosan in South Korea twice with Roland Ziesmann, principal at Ziesmann Baugeräte GmbH, and have been impressed by the company and its people and the way they achieve their goals.

“The DX700LC model is the second Doosan excavator we have purchased from Ziesmann Baugeräte GmbH – we also own a DX140LCR reduced tail swing excavator which has performed very well since it was purchased. The excellent performance of the DX140LCR, together with our close relationship and trust in our dealer alongside our belief in Doosan technology and back-up were key factors in the purchase decision behind the new DX700LC excavator.”

CDI release official footage of weekend’s spectacular implosion.

It’s been just a few days since the spectacular implosion of the old El Paso City Hall and, as is the tradition, Controlled Demolition Inc. (CDI) has just uploaded their official footage of the blast.

And, as it contains multiple views of this impressive implosion, it’s well worth a viewing. Check it out.

South Shields market traders complain about demolition dust.

An angry South Shields market trader claims demolition work is damaging his business – after his stall was covered in dust.

Robbie Ridley says the council has broken a pledge that flattening Wouldhave House would not affect traders in the Market Place, just yards away.

Early yesterday afternoon, amid gusting winds, dust from the gable end of the building spread to Ridley’s stall, on which he sells clothes and bric-a-brac. The stall was covered with a fine layer of dust – despite plastic protective covers around the former office and retail complex.

Soon after the incident, a fed-up Ridley packed up for the day. “They should not have been carrying out work in those winds. You could smell and taste the dust and it covered the stall. This is hitting our trade.”

A South Tyneside Council spokesman said: “The council apologises for any distress this has caused to the gentleman. “The contractors have put in place stringent health and safety measures to minimise the risk of any materials or dust escaping from the demolition site. “These include the use of protective screens and spraying the dust with water, to help prevent the particles leaving the area.”

Read more here.

Crew refuses to work on former mill site until “spirits” are removed.

Last spring, Coventry Building and Wrecking began tearing down the old French Worsted Co. building in Woonsocket, Rhode Island so that the site could be prepped for new construction. The building dated back to 1906.

“What happened here is still a mystery to me. What was real too was the fear that the construction crew felt and that time, and also what was real was that the work stopped,” said Sofia Kaczor, a hydrologist for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management.

The work stopped because of two events that involved a crane.

The crane, which was operated by John Baccaire, went haywire every time it got close to tearing away one part of the building. Baccaire’s daughter, Kim, took a picture she said shows what looks like ghosts in the window of the old mill.

“That’s not something that I’ve experienced. So I think if somebody experienced something like that, you would believe in that,” Kaczor said.

A second time, Baccaire told NBC 10 a huge beam bounced on the ground and appeared to be guided directly at the crane’s cab and missed Baccaire by inches.

The owner of Coventry Building and Wrecking said he’d been doing this for more than 40 years and he could find no explanation why the machine was malfunctioning.

Read more here, or view the local news video below:

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