Demolition workers that discovered $330,000 stash unlikely to benefit.

Workers dismantling a vacant house in rural Japan discovered $330,000 cash stuffed in a tin box underneath the living room floor, press reports said Wednesday.

The house, in a farming town on the northern island of Hokkaido, had been empty since its elderly male owner died two years ago, the reports said.

The cash — about 2,600 notes each worth 10,000 yen ($127) bundled together or put in envelopes — will be handed over to the dead man’s relatives on the main Japanese island of Honshu, the reports said.

“Because the cash was discovered at an individual’s house, it is clear whose money it is,” a spokesman for the local police station said by telephone. “So we don’t treat it as a lost-and-found case.”

Campaign to save quake-hit cathedral takes new legal twist.

A legal battle to save Christ Church Cathedral is set to rage on after high-profile Auckland lawyer Mai Chen claimed the demolition order may be unlawful.

Campaign group Restore Christchurch Cathedral sought advice from Chen’s firm ChenPalmer to back up action taken by the Great Christchurch Buildings Trust (GCBT), which this month sought a binding court ruling on whether the Anglican church’s deconstruction plans breached an act of Parliament protecting church buildings.

Chen’s view was the New Zealand Historic Places Trust (NZHPT) breached its statutory obligation to protect heritage buildings by approving the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority’s section 38 demolition order.

In her opinion, the NZHPT signoff was required under the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery (CER) Act.

The NZHPT was obligated under the the Historic Places (HP) Act to consider the “least possible alteration or loss” of heritage values despite the act being amended for emergency demolition after the February 2011 quake, Chen said.

Expert engineering advice proved the cathedral could be safely maintained in its existing state or restored to pre-quake condition.

Read more here.

Hydraulic crane equipped with wrecking ball tackles silo demolition.

But for the life of us, we can’t remember ever seeing a wrecking ball hitched to a hydraulic crane before. Until now.

For that s precisely the demolition method selected to demolish the Taylor, Smith & Taylor silos in Chester, West Virginia.

The silo work, originally scheduled to start in August, was delayed because samples of soil from underground tanks at the base of the silos had to be tested for anything toxic, Six said. Officials were awaiting the results and final approval from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

“We had to get sampling done from underneath the tanks to make sure nothing had leaked out into the soil,” Six said. “The results came back clean, so they said, ‘Go ahead and take them down.'”

The silos are at least half full with powdered clay that was used in the pottery-making process. Officials had hoped the clay could be reused but found that it couldn’t because it was in a hardened form, Six said.

Once the silos are down, the crushed concrete and clay will be used as filler material on the site, Six said. Other materials, including bricks, concrete, sandstone, steel beams and wood beams, have either been hauled away for reuse or kept on site as clean fill.

More than 254 loads of asbestos-containing material have been hauled away and taken to a certified landfill since cleanup began in April. Officials also believe that some of the riverbank soil is contaminated with lead, requiring further remediation with the help of a $200,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Read more here.

All the presentations, all the speakers, all in high def’

It’s hard to believe that the National Federation of Demolition Contractors fifth Demolition Day seminar/exhibition took place a week ago today.

While exhibitors have been following up enquiries and speakers have been responding to email questions, we have been beavering away in the background to bring you all the very best footage from this event.

Each of the main speakers’ presentations was recorded by our video crew, and all the resulting videos are now available on our YouTube channel.

To help you pick and choose your viewing pleasure, we have provided direct links to each presentation below:
• Competency Through Training – Sophie Cox, National Demolition Training Group
• NFDC Waste Exemption and Permitting Guidance – Graham Winter, Environment Agency
• Fee For Intervention – John Underwood, Health & Safety Executive
• Demolition Case Study – Dr Clifford Burton, Keltbray Environmental
• Competency – John Woodward, Institute of Demolition Engineers
• Demolition Case Study – John Rimmer, Cantillon Limited

HSE’s John Underwood looks at the numerous challenges facing UK demolition contractors.

Following in the immediate aftermath of the launch of its controversial Fee For Intervention scheme, the presentation by the Health and Safety Executive’s John Underwood was one of the most hotly-anticipated presentations at the NFDC’s recent Demolition Day.

In truth, the whole of Underwood’s presentation was enlightening, providing a snapshot into the litany of legislation facing the modern demolition contractor. But most interesting of all comes at the 23 minute mark where Underwood suggests that – based on the HSE’s target figures – inspectors will need to be charging for around half of all inspections if they are to raise the anticipated £23 million. Underwood’s thoughts on what his fellow HSE colleagues make of the FFI scheme also make for interesting vieweing.

Major milestone for family-owned contractor.

After three generations of family management, Birmingham-based demolition experts Coleman & Company celebrates 50 years in business today. Managing director Mark Coleman, grandson of founders John and Norah Coleman, says the golden milestone is a “massive achievement” for the family business, which had a turnover of £15.5 millon last year.

Despite the difficult economic environment investment in people, facilities and equipment has helped Coleman & Company to buck the trend of decline in the construction industry.

Profit margins are increasing and the firm has taken on 40 additional staff in the last 12 months thanks to a string of successful projects. This is in addition to more short-term contracts for locally employed project staff on a number of high-profile projects including demolition works at Birmingham New Street Station.

Mark Coleman said: “This milestone is a remarkable achievement for any family business and we are extremely proud to not only to celebrate 50 years in business, but to celebrate it with continued success.

“Revenues have gone up and down in recent years as you would expect with the continued economic uncertainty but our profit performance remains healthy and last year’s margin was our best yet. Some sectors in the construction industry are struggling but others, such as utilities and industrial, are presenting real opportunities and we are well placed to deliver them. As the construction industry continues to evolve, we will keep investing in our people and equipment to develop new, innovative methods to reach new sectors and meet changes in customer demand.”

The company was founded in Stechford in 1962 by John and Norah Coleman before their son David took over the helm after John’s death in 1984. David was succeeded as Managing Director by his own son Mark in 2011 and remains Group Chairman of the firm, now based in Great Barr.

Coleman & Company employs 158 people in full time positions with many more in the supply chain working on projects across the UK. It moved to Great Barr in 2006, where it has invested in a purpose-built, six-acre site including the UK’s first urban quarry, a specialist washing plant capable of turning 150,000 tonnes of waste material into recycled sand and gravel each year. This year a further £1.9 million has been invested in new plant and equipment, including the formation of a new diamond cutting company.

The firm has completed a string of high-profile projects in recent years including the deconstruction and demolition of Dunston Rocket in Gateshead and sensitive demolition work at Birmingham New Street Station, for which it was awarded World Demolition Contract of the Year in 2011.

This year it also completed the challenging deconstruction of a gas holder for National Grid in Liverpool – another successful project which has been shortlisted for the same award this year.

“I am extremely proud to be a third generation Coleman working in the family business and delighted to say that the last 50 years have been a great success for Coleman & Company. I sincerely hope that I, and other generations to follow, can build on this and achieve even greater things in the next 50 years,” Mark Coleman says. “This is a true family company, in all senses. Our greatest asset is our people and we want to ensure that as the company progresses we will remain a family business in every way. We may have invested in the latest innovations but without the people that operate, manage, maintain and direct them they are just lumps of metal.”

Coleman & Company is celebrating the golden milestone with a year-long charity initiative called Triple 50, aiming to raise £50,000 for three charities; The Sepsis Unit at Good Hope Hospital, SIFA Fireside and Teenage Cancer Trust . It is also working closely with Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council to improve a local nature reserve close to the firm’s Great Barr headquarters.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery for Rhino Demolition.

Our friend Demo Diva Simone Bruni has built an extraordinarily high global profile despite running a modestly-sized demolition company in New Orleans. And that profile owes as much to Bruni’s shrewd marketing – brightly coloured machines, close ties with the local community and the use of athletic cheerleaders in her TV commercials – as it does to the company’s demolition prowess.

All of which seems to have piqued the interest (and possibly envy) of Rhino Demolition which is seeking to steal some of Bruni’s pink thunder by what is best described as selective replication.

First off, the company has followed Bruni’s lead and allied itself with the New Orleans Saints NFL team, borrowing the team’s famous “Who Dat” catchphrase to create its own “Wreck Dat” image. The company has also addressed the need for a feminine touch by recruiting the “Wreck Dat” girls who, as far as we can tell, have very little to do with wrecking and far more to do with brightly coloured t-shirts and Daisy Duke shorts.

Knowing Bruni as we do, we cannot believe that this green incursion into pink territory will go unanswered.

Excessive levels of hazardous materials found at demolition sites.

As of last month, asbestos levels exceeding the World Health Organization’s safety limit were detected in 14 cases at sites where buildings damaged by last year’s Great East Japan Earthquake were being demolished, according to a government study.

Asbestos is a textile-like mineral that if inhaled by humans may lead to serious health problems including lung cancer. As the material is ideal for fireproofing and insulating against noise, a large quantity had been imported since the 1960s, with most used in construction.

In 2006, an ordinance of the Industrial Safety and Health Law was revised to prohibit the use of construction materials that contain more than 0.1 percent of asbestos. The risk of airborne asbestos to people’s health was pointed out after the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake.

Amid such concerns in the wake of last year’s devastating earthquake and tsunami disaster, the Environment Ministry is aiming to bolster its authority to inspect demolition sites. The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry and the Environment Ministry conducted the study to measure the density of asbestos in the air at 114 demolition sites in Miyagi, Iwate, Fukushima, Tochigi, Ibaraki and other prefectures.

The study found that between 10.6 and 783.5 parts of asbestos per liter of air were detected at 14 sites, much higher than the WHO’s safety limit of 10. The largest level, 783.5, was found in a hotel being demolished in a business district in Aoba Ward, Sendai.

Read more here.

Pre-weakened silos resist explosives in failed explosive demolition.

The opening frame from the following video – which we believe originates in Finland – shows a bunch of silos already listing to one side from pre-weakening works. Indeed, they’re leaning that much that it looks as if a strong breeze would blow them over.

And yet in a gravity-defying blast, the silos resist strong winds and explosives to remain standing although slightly shorter then they were before.

Horse racing gives way to demolition at fifth NFDC Demolition Day

The fifth National Federation of Demolition Contractors‘ Demolition Day took place at Sandown Park race course earlier this week and, as expected, it was the biggest and best-attended event of its kind yet.

More than 250 delegates – a mix of members, clients and industry influencers – crammed into Sandown’s conference facility to hear presentations from some of the leading organistions in the industry including the NDTG, HSE, Environment Agency and the Institute of Demolition Engineers.

Meanwhile, in the outside area, a large collection of some of the most sought-after plant and equipment on offer to the modern demolition contractor made for a spectacular and sun-drenched backdrop.

A detailed report on the event will be in the next edition of Demolition & Dismantling, and high definition videos of each of the key presentations will be avaialble shortly.

But, in the meantime, enjoy our video crew’s highlight reel below: