Verification letter appears to support CDI record book claims.

The electronic ink was barely dry on our previous article when our email inbox lit up like Times Square on the 4th of July.

We previously suggested that, impressive though it was, CDI implosion of a radio antenna in Liberia was not quite as tall as the company had claimed in its YouTube channel.

However, CDI’s Stacey Loizeaux has been in contact with us with a Verification_Letter from none other than the United States Coast Guard which seems to support their claim that the tower 1,410 feet and 2 inches tall prior to its implosion.

Curioser and curioser…!

Expanding compound supplier offers free UK product demonstrations.

As part of a new approach to marketing the demolition compound Sylentmite, European agents Concrete & Rock Solutions Limited have just thrown an irresistible challenge, amounting to a free offer, to the demolition world.

“We are going to offer demolition companies the closest thing to a “free lunch” they are ever going to see”, said CRS director Colin Gaunt. “Because we are actively looking for demolition sites where we can demonstrate the demolition capabilities of Sylentmite. In short we will come and demolish an awkward or challenging part of a demolition site for free,” Gaunt explains, “Although Sylentmite is well known, and its capabilities appreciated throughout Asia and America, the product has a remarkably low profile in the UK, when it could be the perfect answer to many demolition problems.”

“The product is safe and easy to use, and requires no specialist training or qualifications. You can even use it underwater. It’s also made entirely from natural products, plus the spent end product is neutral and can simply be swept up afterwards,” Gaunt concluded.

“The fact that you can burst concrete rebar with Sylentmite is going to open a few eyes, but for the non believers, we’d actually like to demonstrate this on their site. Then they can see just how effective it is. But we are actively looking for a few volunteers!”
CRS already have a Midlands site set up, (details to follow shortly) but are actively looking for four or more additional sites in London/South East, the West Country/Wales, the North and Scotland. At each demo, CRS will provide free x2-3, 20kg boxes of Sylentmite for each demolition (one box will break 3m3). The only criteria, there will need to be a pre-demo inspection where the company can discuss their drilling patterns on the material to be demolished. CRS will expect any drilling to be done by the site host.

Each demonstration will take in the region of 90 minutes to complete (once drilling has been completed) which will give plenty of time to discuss the capabilities of the product and for our host company to hopefully provide some refreshments whilst they wait.

Further information is available from Concrete & Rock Solutions.

Concrete shear makes light work of Dutch bridge demolition.

This weekend saw the demolition of a bridge over the A20 motorway in Rottedam.

The work was carried out by Heijmans Infra Techniek using an Hitachi 870-3 HRD equipped with a new Mantovanibenne CR 80 concrete shear, both supplied by Democom, one of the biggest demolition contractors in the Netherlands.

Our thanks to our friends over at High Reach Demolition for alerting us to this video.

New Zealand authorities to step up post-quake demolitions.

The Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority (CERA) will start issuing compulsory demolition notices to building owners in central Christchurch from Monday.

About 900 commercial buildings in the central city will need to be demolished because of earthquake damage.

The authority says it needs to follow a more complicated process than Civil Defence had to. But demolitions manager Warwick Isaacs says things will speed up once the issuing of demolition notices begins next week.

Owners will then have 10 days to say how they will proceed, otherwise CERA will carry out the demolition and send a bill.

Read more here.

Explosives fail to shift stubborn stand at Brasilia’s Garrincha Stadium.

Brasilia’s World Cup stadium, named after World Cup-winning star Garrincha, proved too tough even for dynamite on Sunday during construction work on the arena being used for the 2014 tournament.

The Globo newspaper website reported that 250kg of explosives proved incapable of demolishing the stands and that further attempts would be made later in the day.

Transmitter tower is certainly tall…but just how tall?

One of the often unseen foibles of the demolition industry is its occasional indulgence in “mine’s bigger than yours” boasting and ego-stroking. Companies running high reach excavators are always keen to go that little nit higher than their closest competitor; while in the explosive sector everyone likes to think they’ve done the biggest, widest or tallest.

So when we received news that Controlled Demolition, Inc (CDI) was claiming a new world record for the “Tallest Structure Ever To Be Demolished Using Explosives”, we felt obliged to dig just a wee bit deeper. According to the company’s YouTube channel, the company has just completed the successful explosives felling of the tallest structure on the African Continent – the 1,410-foot, 2-inch tall (429 metre), structural steel Omega Radio Transmitter Tower in Paynesville, Liberia.

But a quick check of the Structurae International Database of Structures suggests that the tower measured 1,370 feet (417 metres) tall when it was measured.

Certainly the video (below) shows that the tower is seriously tall. But unless there has been some large-scale soil erosion that has swept away 12 metres of soil in the past 34 years, we’re not quite convinced it’s a new world record.

East Toledo boiler house felled by implosion.

The former Acme Power Plant at the Marina District in East Toledo was imploded on Friday.

The abandoned city-owned building sits at the northern edge of the planned Marina District — bordered by cracked sidewalks along Front and flanked by high weeds and rocky terrain. The destruction of the Boiler No. 16 building, attached to the former power plant, inches the city closer to getting the property back into use as a mix of new commercial and residential buildings — something officials have envisioned for more than a dozen years.

Read more here, or view the video below:

Former explosive demolition company of the year completes latest successful blast.

A multi-storey block of flats in the north of Glasgow has been demolished by Safedem using controlled explosion overnight.

It took 55kg of explosives and just five seconds to bring down the 17-storey Glasgow Housing Association property at Coll Place in the Germiston area.

The demolition took place in the early hours to minimise disruption to other local residents and to rail services.

GHA’s executive director of development and regeneration Alex McGuire said: “The demolition of the last of the multi-storeys at Coll Place is part of our wider plans, with our partners, to regenerate communities across the city.

“We’d like to thank nearby residents for their patience and understanding while the demolition was carried out.”

City finally draws a line under an on/off saga of near-Biblical proportions.

After months of delay, a unanimous Austin City Council chose the company Thursday it will pay to dismantle the Holly Power Plant, a hulking, shuttered mass of pipes, beams and boilers on the north shore of Lady Bird Lake.

The council settled on TRC Environmental Corp. for the environmentally sensitive task. The $11.5 million job should start in July and take about 18 months, according to the city.

“I think it’s time to move forward,” Council Member Mike Martinez said, noting the troubled history of the plant, which the city decided to shut down in the early 1990s but remains standing, to the frustration of the East Austin neighborhood surrounding it. “This project is long overdue.”

The council’s decision comes after much questioning about how it chose a contractor. Late last year, city staff recommended hiring TRC, despite the fact the company’s $24.9 million bid was $6.1 higher than its nearest competitor. Company officials — and, at one point, former Mayor Gus Garcia, to whom the company initially directed media questions — defended the selection, saying other firms could not safely do the job for the prices they had quoted. Amid intensifying public scrutiny, the council delayed its scheduled Jan. 13 vote, which led to a second round of bidding.

TRC then sliced its offer to $11.5 million , again becoming city staff’s preferred choice. The change prompted some council members to question the credibility of the bid and led the chairman of the city’s Electric Utility Commission to declare at its April meeting, “This one stinks.”

Read more on this news story here, or read the background to this long-running saga here.

UK demolition company cited and fined for safety breaches.

A demolition firm has admitted failing to take adequate precautions to protect workers and members of the public before it began knocking down a disused cinema in Liverpool, reports Safety & Health Practitioner.

Gaskells Demolition Services Ltd was contracted to demolish the Orion building in Thornton Cleveleys so that a supermarket could be constructed at the site. The art-deco building opened as a cinema in 1934 before being converted into the Orion bingo hall in 1965. It closed permanently in October 2009.

The company erected scaffolding with light debris netting around the front of the building and used a high-reach excavator to demolish small parts of the building. On 17 June 2010, workers were using the excavator when a coping stone became dislodged from the top of the building and fell on to the top deck of the scaffolding. This caused the scaffold to become unbalanced and detach itself from the building. It collapsed into the A587 during rush hour, pulling part of the building down into the road with it. Nobody was injured during the collapse.

Read more here.