A rolling gold mine plant thankfully gathers no excavators.

We have stated our concerns over using excavators and steel ropes to pull down buildings in the past, so we won’t bother to reiterate our unpredictability mantra again.

But as this nice video from Jet Demolition in South Africa clearly illustrates, falling industrial plants do have a nasty habit of rolling. And while this one falls short of the excavator, a little more momentum cod have seen a totally different outcome:

Jet Demolition taking down the plant – Syama Gold Mine, December 2012 from rob porzig on Vimeo.

Pre-blast testing ensures Dykon are all set for tomorrow’s big bang.

At 12.30 tomorrow afternoon (local time), the 80-year old Ben Milam hotel is scheduled to become the latest Houston building to be imploded.

The 10-story building across from Minute Maid Park will be imploded by explosives experts Dykon Explosive Demolition working with demo firm D.H. Griffin of Texas. Once it’s gone, apartment developer the Finger Cos. will build a luxury residential complex in its place.

The 80-year-old building has been vacant for years. It was built to house traveling salesmen who came to town by train through Union Station across the street.

In advance of the blast, the Dykon team has carried out a number of test blasts; and we are delighted to be able to bring you these exclusive photos showing the results from those test below:

Syd Bishop & Sons demolishing former leisure centre to pave way for revitalisation.

Excavators emblazoned with the famous Syd Bishop & Sons epithet “watch it come down” are hard at work today demolishing the squash courts at the former Elephant and Castle leisure centre in Southwark, south London.

This latest demolition marks another major step towards the £1.5 billion regeneration of the area.

Council blames lack of cash for decision to demolish local landmark.

Preston’s iconic bus station is to be demolished with Town Hall bosses claiming they cannot afford to keep it open.

The city’s council has admitted defeat on efforts to save the building, saying it would cost £23 million to refurbish it and more than £5 million to just keep it standing.

The decision will be rubber-stamped next week and talks will start immediately about building a new, smaller bus station on the site of the old one.

Council leader Peter Rankin said the authority could no longer afford to pay nearly £300,000 a year to keep the building standing, with its budgets set to be squeezed by further spending cuts within weeks.

He said the council had hired experts and spoken with developers about refurbishing and transforming it before ruling out every option except demolition, which will cost an estimated £1.8m.

Council leader Peter Rankin said: “My job is to protect the services we deliver and to be spending the best part of £300,000 every year on this building makes that very difficult. The easy decision would be to refurbish it but that would mean borrowing £23 million and paying £2 million in interest alone on that debt, I cannot justify putting that amount of taxpayers’ money into keeping a building open for 20 years. We are left with a difficult decision, but an obvious choice which is to demolish the current bus station and work with the county council to build a modern one in its place.”

Read more here.

…throw a lot more explosives at it.

Explosives engineers and those involved in the controlled implosion of structures would have us believe that their industry occupies an uncharted hinterland between science and black art. And, in truth, when all goes according to plan, it is easy to believe that the countdown and the yell of “fire in the hole” are in some way calling upon divine intervention to ensure that the structure falls, and falls in the right direction.

But when things don’t go quite according to plan, the veneer of science and mysticism is removed to reveal an undeniable truth – If it didn’t fall to a neat little blast the first time, let’s blow the snot out of it and make sure it falls at the second time of asking.

Case in point this unexpectedly resilient Westinghouse smokestack that didn’t so much as shudder at the first attempt. But the engineers made damn sure it was going down the second time around:

Public safety to the fore in battery plant demolition plans.

Exide Technologies has released demolition, dust control and air monitoring plans for the removal of its lead-acid battery plant in Frisco that shut down last week.

According to the demolition plan, which is dated Nov. 9, a site-specific health and safety plan is being put in place for the duration of the demolition. Dust control and air monitoring are included as part of the overall health and safety plan.

The plans were created by Pastor, Behling & Wheeler, an engineering consulting firm, and Remediation Services, a remediation contractor specializing in environmental services.

Many of the preparations for actually tearing down structures and equipment have already begun, although the demolition itself has yet to take place. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality will monitor the demolition once it begins.

No structures on the Exide plant will be demolished with the use of wrecking balls or explosives in an effort to keep the spread of dust at a minimum.

Read more here.

Demolition draws closer for mill as US wood industry continues to decline.

A former Weyerhaeuser sawmill in a county that a state economist calls a “poster child” for the decline of the wood products industry is being dismantled, extinguishing faint hopes that somebody would revive it.

Talks with several groups interested in running a mill didn’t result in a deal to reopen the plant closed in 2009 in the Polk County seat Dallas.

“We didn’t get any traction with that, and I guess it’s not a huge surprise,” said Richard Wayper, vice president of marketing with Northwest Demolition and Dismantling.

The company bought the 66-acre site at an August auction for about $1.4 million. It has hired an auctioneer to take bids on equipment until Christmas and expects that by the first quarter most of it will be removed.

It plans to tear down some of the structures but hopes to find commercial or industrial users for structures in better condition.

Read more here:

Breakdown in communications sees wrong building felled.

Residents of a sleepy French village in Bordeaux have been left dumbfounded after discovering their local 18th-century chateau was completely bulldozed “by mistake.”

The mayor’s office in Yvrac said Wednesday that workers who were hired to renovate the grand 13,000-square-metre (140,000-square-foot) manor and raze a small building on the same estate in southwest France mixed them up.

“The Chateau de Bellevue was Yvrac’s pride and joy,” said former owner Juliette Marmie. “The whole village is in shock. How can this construction firm make such a mistake?”

Local media reported that the construction company misunderstood the renovation plans of the current owner, Russian businessman Dmitry Stroskin, to clean up the manor and restore it to its former baroque glory.

Read more here.

Implosion fells another chunk of the Blanchette Bridge.

Missouri’s Blanchette Bridge is getting smaller.

Just a few weeks after explosives took out the West Struss Span, the remaining steel truss on the bridge’s westbound lanes was blown up by demolition crews shortly before 11 a.m Tuesday.

More than 4.5 million pounds and a thousand feet of steel dropped into the Missouri River.

A 350-foot section of the Blanchette Bridge was brought down last month.

The Blanchette Bridge blasting is part of a $63 million, year-long project to replace the westbound span.

Contractor deploys crane-mounted curtain to contain glass-fibre debris.

So here is what an object lesson in understatement sounds like.

Last Friday, Demolition News Towers received a call from Richard Comley at Comley Demolition. He said that he had “a little video” that he wanted to share with us. “It’s nothing particularly exciting; just a little job we did at RAF Oakhanger,” he said. “But we did use a crane-mounted curtain to prevent glass-fibre contamination becoming airborne.”

Well, that “little video” arrived in the post today and…well, take a look for yourselves: