Video of the latest implosion by explosives veteran Dick Green.

IndEx’s Dick Green has just completed his latest explosive demolition, this time at RAF St Athan in South Wales. The building was an old water tower and involved both IndEx and SES.

The tower was in a tight location with buildings on all 4 sides in close proximity. 2 side buildings were less than 10m away, and a pump and tank were 8m to the rear. Closest of all was a cast water main just 1m from the front of the building.

In order to get a vertical collapse they used 10kg of explosives placed in 250 holes. The end result was a perfect takedown with no damage caused to the surrounding structures.

To view a video of the resulting implosion, please visit the DemolishDismantle website.

Crews aiming to demolish freakish monument pelted with rocks.

A protest action was held against demolition of “Monument to Humanity” dedicated to Armenian-Turkish friendship in Kars.

When employees of Afshine construction company, assigned to dismantle the monument, began studying it for demolition, local residents protested and children threw stones at them, calling “We will not allow to destroy the monument.”

The officers of the company immediately called the police, who warned local residents not to hinder demolition works, Atili website reports.

As Armenian News-NEWS.am reported earlier, during his visit to Kars, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the monument to Armenia-Turkey friendship “monstrous” and ordered to demolish it.

Read more here.

Large excavator knocks out water main in Middletown demolition.

Crews worked for several hours on Monday to shut off water to a damaged water main at the Aetna complex on Middle Street. The pipe broke due to demolition work at the site, knocking out water pressure in the western part of the city.

Guy Russo, director of the Water and Sewer Department, said his department completed their testing on the Aetna site around 6 p.m. Russo said the water main was disused because the Aetna site is vacant, so his department decided to shut off its valves and abandon it.

“As best we know, everything’s pretty calm up there,” Russo said. He said he took a tour of some of the affected neighborhoods, talking with residents he encountered to see if their water service was back to normal.

Earlier in the day, though, Russo said the scene was quite different.

Russo said his department started receiving calls about low water pressure in the neighborhood around Brechlin Drive and Atkins Street around 1:30 p.m. April 18. He said his crews were able to pinpoint the problem to the Aetna complex, where a contractor operating “a very, very large excavator” hit an eight-inch water main.

Read more here.

Work underway on project that will result in new $75 million convention centre.

Demolition is under way in downtown Cedar Rapids as crews tear down the old to make room a new convention complex.

The $75 million dollar Convention Center complex will literally transform a part of downtown Cedar Rapids. And after more than a year of plans and talking, it was time for action.

The work on the massive redesign of downtown started with the sound of breaking glass.

The demolition contractor began by tearing down a walkway along the outside of the second floor ballrooms at the U.S. Cellular Center.

Workers are using a high-tech machine with a grappling arm to carefully tear away at the elevated ballrooms that stood above the now-closed Third Street NE.

They’ll they turn to the west knocking down offices and parking garages until the Roosevelt Apartment is the only building standing aside from the hotel and arena.

Read more here or view the video below:

Insurance advertisement pokes fun at bungling demolition men.

The demolition industry is rife with stories about the wrong building being felled at the wrong time. And now that far from amusing genre of humour has been turned into a TV advertisement for household insurance.

Christchurch aftershock brings forward demolition of leaning structure.

Demolition begins today on a building in Christchurch CBD which is leaning over, after last night’s jolt.

The Strategy Building on Montreal Street was severely damaged in the February quake. The 5.3 magnitude aftershock has made it tilt over further.

Civil Defence national controller John Hamilton says it’s been assessed and needs to come down immediately. He says work starts today and will take a number of days before the building has been brought down completely.

Mr Hamilton says The Hotel Grand Chancellor, which was already on a lean, seems not to have moved any further. Other buildings have also sustained more damage, and there are also burst pipes, rock falls, and fresh liquefaction.

Read more here.

Demolition company stakes reputation on dust control system.

When IronHustler president Dave Schielein began investigating alternative methods of dust suppression on demolition and recycling projects, the company had been using the same technique that most firms try: manually spraying the area with a hose. But Schielein was dissatisfied with the results.

“It was an expensive approach, having a worker spend an entire shift spraying the site,” he observed. “Even worse was the fact that it was so ineffective. The powerful spray would actually dislodge dust from the ground and send it airborne,” he said.

After doing some initial research, Schielein ultimately settled on a DustBoss DB-60 from Dust Control Technology. “We liked the fact that Dust Control Technology concentrates only on suppression, and they’re not concerned with selling a wide range of equipment. Dust management is all they do.”

The results were immediately apparent. “The effectiveness was the first thing we noticed,” Schielein continued. “The DB-60 covered a huge area with a very fine mist. Equipment from other suppliers tended to produce large droplets, more of a spray than a fog. And even the oscillating models couldn’t match the coverage area. In fact, this technology has proven so successful for us that we now include DustBoss literature in the package whenever we quote a job. Customers see that as part of our proposal, and they know we’re employing state-of-the-art dust suppression technology. I wouldn’t use anything else.”

TV series producers bid to prevent demolition of Katrina-damaged New Orleans homes.

The producers of an HBO television series about life after Hurricane Katrina are fighting to stop the demolition of a row of New Orleans homes the city says are in danger of collapsing.

The producers of the series “Treme” want the homes to be preserved and renovated. The homes became a symbol of post-Katrina in New Orleans when they were featured as the backdrop of a poster promoting the television series.

However, Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration says the houses are in imminent danger of collapse and that neighbors want them demolished.

Read more here.

Key members of the Institute of Demolition Engineers aid ambitious demolition man.

Back at the beginning of March, we reported the story of Gabor Prudencio, the highly qualified Hungarian civil engineer who left Bolivia (where he had been working) to pursue his demolition dream here in the UK.

Since that time, we have been asked regularly for an update on his progress; and we are delighted to announce that he has just received his CSCS Demolition Trainee card which will allow him to actively seek work int he UK demolition industry.

That card comes courtesy of considerable help from Institute of Demolition Engineers’ president John Woodward and the IDE’s event’s co-ordinator Duncan Rudall who have effectively taken Prudencio under their wing to help him realise his dream. And it has not been without its challenges.

A strange quirk of the UK competence card scheme is that you need to work in demolition in order to qualify for a card. But you can’t work in demolition UNTIL you have a card.

Knowing Woodward and Rudall as we do, the chances are that they will never tell anyone about their generous contribution.

But, on behalf of DemolitionNews and, of course, Gabor Prudencio, our heartfelt thanks to the IDE for swinging into action.

Villagers clash with Chinese demolition crews.

An ongoing dispute between land developers and villagers in Tianhe District in of China’s Guangzhou City led to violence this week. Villagers are refusing to accept compensation and let their homes be demolished.

According to reports, the Xichun Village Committee of Tianhe District in Guangzhou City sent a large earthmoving machine into Lanqing Road. The excavator blocked the road and attempted to demolish residential housing by force. To stop the demolition, villagers clashed with workers, eventually leading to bloodshed.

A series of exclusive amateur videos of the clashes can be found here.