Vertical drop ball preferable to “Aussies or Yanks” says New Zealand demolition man.

A demolition expert believes Christchurch’s tallest hotel, the Grand Chancellor, will probably have to be knocked down by dropping a wrecking ball through the roof above its 26 accommodation floors.

“It will have to be done straight away – it’s not the sort where you can actually deconstruct it, because it is leaning,” said Demolition and Asbestos Association president Diana Stil.

Stil is in Christchurch to join other industry experts in advising civil defence authorities on how to clear central Christchurch of earthquake debris.

“When I saw it last night it was very unstable. You can’t load it – it’s already leaning, collapsing on one side – so the scenario of a ball and crane is probably the safest as that means there is no human exposure. We believe it can’t be saved, but that’s up to construction engineers.”

Alec Burrell, of Auckland’s Burrell Demolition, said it was unlikely that controlled explosives could be used to bring down the building because that would involve long preparations requiring people to enter the building to lay them.

“But at this stage no decision can be made until things have stopped moving,” he said. “Maybe it will be possible to take off the damaged side floor-by-floor and then rebuild it on new piles. I have no idea, but it would be a lot cheaper than mowing the whole thing down and starting again. Until the engineers are allowed a proper look at it nothing can be done – it might look 10 times worse than it is.”

Mr Burrell said local contractors and structural engineers would be well up to the challenge of dealing with the building – a task which would be far more straightforward than the Newmarket motorway viaduct project.

“What concerns us is the Aussies or Yanks may say nobody around here can do it and they’ll bring in a bunch of people and God help us.”

Read the full story here.

Fire tears through Tyne Bridge Tower, Gateshead

Firefighters battled a blaze at a derelict landmark building on the banks of the Tyne yesterday.

Rush-hour commuters watched as smoke billowed from Tyne Bridge Tower, a 13-storey block on the Gateshead side of the river, currently undergoing demolition. DemolitionNews understands that the contractor on the site is MGL Demolition, but this has yet to be confirmed.

The blaze was reported to fire crews shortly before 8.40am and eight fire engines were sent to the scene on Cannon Street.

When fire crews arrived at the scene, demolition workers who had been working to bring the building down were attempting to put out the flames using fire extinguishers.

But it eventually took 22 firefighters to quell the blaze. It is believed the fire started in the lift shaft between the sixth and seventh floors.

Read more here.

Lightning strikes twice as second power plant falls.

The structures around the 284 East Power House in central Hanford came crashing down Friday.

It was a repeat of the explosive demolition of the power house’s near twin, the 284 West Power House, two weeks ago – except Friday’s was larger. The east power house had an additional filtration structure and a coal silo.

Crews at the 284 East Power House Friday demolished two 76 metre (250-foot) fall exhaust chimneys, three 27 metre (90-foot) tall air filter structures and a coal silo.

In addition, they brought down a nearby water tower, one of two towers familiar to Hanford workers for their “Work Safely” signs.

Worker on post=quake New Zealand clean-up punches friend.

An overstressed demolition worker who assaulted a friend on Friday night has been sentenced to do community work.

Duty solicitor Shannon-Leigh Litt said Shane David Sampson-Arps had been working on demolitions in the centre of Christchurch the February 22 earthquake.

“He had requested counselling for what he had been seeing,” she told Christchurch District Court Judge Michael Crosbie today. “He had found it very distressing, though he knows he acted out of turn by assaulting his friend.”

Sampson-Arps, a 19-year-old labourer, pleaded guilty to the assault charge at a sitting of the court at Rangiora Court House today.

Police prosecutor Sergeant Jeff Kay said the incident happened at 8pm when Sampson-Arps and his friend were in a car outside a house in Aranui.

While they waited for a friend to come out of the house, Sampson-Arps repeatedly leaned across and sounded the horn. They exchanged words about that and when they got out of the car Sampson-Arps punched his friend twice in the chest and once in the face. The victim’s shirt was torn and he had a sore cheek.

Read more here.

Demolition work underway on San Jose soccer stadium.

For the San Jose Earthquakes, last Thursday was Demolition Day, as the Northern California club began what could be a long process toward the completion of a new stadium.

The Quakes’ new stadium, which is expected to hold 15,000 fans, expandable to 18,000, could cost between $40 million and $60 million in an area called Airport West. Though demolition at the site has begun, the club acknowledged that it has no completion date as it waits for a signature sponsor to help finance the project.

The stadium is the latest project in Major League Soccer, which over the past few years has made the construction of soccer stadiums a priority.

Lock away your tofu; DemolitionNews is coming to the US or A.

It’s the worst kept secret this side of Charlie Sheen’s attraction toward the opposite sex; DemolitionNews is coming to America (or going to America, depending where you’re reading this).

That’s right. From 21 through 24 March, DemolitionNews will be opening a temporary editorial office at the Las Vegas Convention Center and/or The Luxor Hotel. That’s just three weeks from now so any of my American friends that have taken offence at any previous comments have plenty of time to order up the horse head accessory for my bed before I arrive in town.

Of course, the primary reason for being in Vegas is to check out all the new demolition kit on show at the ConExpo-Con/Agg exhibition. But we’re really hoping to catch up with some of our readers and demolition professionals during our flying visit.

So, if you’re going to be in town, if I haven’t offended you recently, or even if you merely have a recommendation of places to eat, things to see, or maybe even places to avoid (and please don’t say The Luxor – It could be worse, I could be staying here), please drop us a line.

And we hope to see as many of you as possible while we’re there.

Workers to help scour beaches for waste from demolished hotel.

Demolition crews will help check Galveston beaches over complaints that debris from a hotel being torn down is falling into the water.

City spokeswoman Alicia Cahill says the contractor will canvass the beach daily during low tide to remove any possible debris from the former Flagship Hotel, which was built on pilings. Cahill said Wednesday that more containment netting will be used.

Beach patrols will watch for potential glass and concrete pieces. The Texas General Land Office is also involved.

Read more here.

Reports confirm that two men may have died in bridge demolition accident.

Reports have confirmed that, contrary to our earlier news, TWO men may have died in the incident earlier this week on the old Mississippi River bridge near Greenville.

According to the Washington County Sheriff’s Department and Washington County Coroner Methel Johnson, the accident occurred about 2:30 p.m.

Washington County Coroner Methel Johnson tells the Delta Democrat Times that a 46-year-old worker died at the scene Wednesday and a 21-year-old employee died later at a Jackson hospital.

Johnson says the names have not been released until authorities contact relatives. The men worked for Granite Construction, a subcontractor on the dismantling project.

Unopened Vegas hotel has become the “poster child for non-confirming work”.

MGM Resorts officials, very quietly and with no public fanfare, want to demolish the unopened 27-storey Harmon Hotel, one of the components of its $8.5 billion CityCenter development.

But litigation and pinpointing blame for the troubled building will prevent anything from happening to the unfinished tower until late 2012.

In its recent third-quarter earnings statement, MGM Resorts said it took a $279 million noncash impairment charge for the Harmon and concluded “it is unlikely the Harmon will be completed using the building as it now stands.”

In an interview this week, CityCenter Chief Executive Officer Bobby Baldwin said the company has hired two sets of structural engineers to determine the building’s condition and what steps might be taken. MGM Resorts will bring in a third group of experts to analyze the building.

A report on the findings will be filed with the Clark County District Court, as part of CityCenter’s lawsuit against Perini Building Co., the project’s general contractor.

Clark County Building Department officials will not allow any construction to be done to the Harmon, which was originally designed as a 47-story hotel and condominium tower. In 2008, inspectors found structural work on the Harmon did not match building plans submitted to the county. The construction issues involved improperly placed steel reinforcing bar. In January 2009, MGM Resorts scrapped the planned 200 condominium units for the upper floors and stopped the tower at 27 stories.

Read more here.

Bid to raze middle school pleases school board, stuns fellow contractors.

Members of the North Fayette Board of Directors are undoubtedly patting themselves on the back today having secured a local middle school demolition bid so low that it’s undetectable to radar.

The board had apparently braced itself for a price in the $100,000 to $200,000 range, predictions that were borne out by initial bids ranging from $133,000 to $173,333. One further bid of $292,000 apparently came in from a contractor who has lived in a cave these past two years and was unaware of the recession and the US demolition industry’s apparent determination to render itself extinct.

And then along comes Kelly Demolition (in our mind’s eye whistling down the path, a happy smile on his face, possibly clicking his heels), slapping down a bid of $99,000 and leaving with the spoils.

Now, in the grand scheme of the US’ race to the bottom, undercutting your nearest rival by $33,000 on a $100,000 job is no big deal.

But Kelly wasn’t finished yet. Oh no siree Bob. Not content with hitting his competitors so far below the belt that many are now suffering from shin splints, Kelly then announces that he will get the work done a good couple of weeks ahead of schedule.

Unless he plans to use trained termites to carry out the demolition or has discovered a local waste repository that will pay him in gold bullion for every square yard of arisings he throws at them, this appears to be just another example of the US demolition sector’s race to the bottom.

Read more here.