Demolition officials and Chinese resident engaged in water-borne brinkmanship.

Most demolition contractors that have been around for a while will have come across the stubborn resident that, despite everything, refuses to leave their home, causing programme delays and intense frustration all round. But few demolition companies would vent that frustration by first demolishing all the neighbouring properties and then building a seven metre wide and four metre deep moat around the remaining property.

But then, they seem to do things rather differently in China, as Kunming resident Zhao Xing has found to his cost. It has been a week since Xing and his family have had difficulty getting in and out of their home, which is surrounded by a water-filled trench.

Located within the second ring road of Kunming, capital of Southwest China’s Yunnan province, Zhao’s house is the last remaining one in the village of Zhaojiadui, which has been flattened for a redevelopment project.

He has held out because a compensation deal has yet to be agreed between the 53-year-old homeowner and the demolition authorities since the project was announced at the end of 2009.

Read more here.

Contract to demolish Rensselaer train station awarded

Jackson Demolition Services Inc. of Schenectady, New York, has been awarded the contract to demolish two old buildings at Albany/Rensselaer train station in Rensselaer. The company will start the work in early November and take about 10 weeks to raze the structures.

The buildings, one a former administrative office building and the other a former rail station, were built in 1968 and 1980, respectively.

The demolition, for which Jackson Demolition will be paid $187,500, is the first component of a longer-range plan that includes adding a fourth track to ease bottlenecks and extending the rail station’s existing platform.

Read more here.

Demolition company sued over landfill violations just months before fire broke out.

Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection sued the owner of a local landfill months before a fire broke out, but the case ended in September when the owner died.

The fire began in October and has covered nearby neighborhoods with smoke almost every day since Oct. 15, leaving locals fretting about health conditions and unable, at times, to go outdoors. However, that was not the first time fire had been an issue at the landfill.

In April, the DEP submitted a complaint and petition for enforcement against Demolition Disposal Inc. The petition alleges the landfill workers “accepted and then failed to segregate and properly dispose of waste other than construction and demolition disposal debris” in violation of the landfill’s permit. The landfill also did not have a “trained spotter” on duty while waste was being received and workers did not “prohibit open burning of solid waste.”

“The facility has not demonstrated that the fire has been extinguished … and that one or all three components of fire (fuel, oxygen, temperature) have been removed or controlled,” Kirk White, an assistant general counsel, wrote in DEP’s complaint.

But fire was not the only problem at the facility, White wrote. Landfill officials also failed to monitor ground water or control stormwater at the facility.

Read full story here.

Coincidental post-implosion sunbeams or divine intervention?

I am not a religious man. It is my belief that, if there were a benevolent God smiling down upon us, my beloved West Ham wouldn’t be propping up the English premier league table.

However, even with my total lack of spirituality, there is something vaguely divine about the following video.

As you may recall, we reported last week that the First Baptist Church in Dallas was to implode several neighbouring buildings this weekend to kick-start the development of a new 21st century campus. However, there was considerable local concern that these implosions – which were to take place less than 50 feet from the church – might inflict damage on the 120-year old church itself.

Judging by the closing frames of the following video, they needn’t have worried. For, as the dust clears, celestial sunbeams bathe the undamaged church in what I can only describe as a celestial glow.

So God bless you all.

Delicate Dallas demolition scheduled for this weekend.

This Saturday, the First Baptist Church in Dallas is set to implode 56,000 square metres (600,000 square feet) of buildings without scratching its 120-year-old sanctuary. Heavy equipment is ready to roll on Federal Street and back hoes and dynamite will bring down six buildings for First Baptist Dallas. The landmark sanctuary from 1890 will remain.

“I was saved in this building when I was five, baptized here,” said Pastor Robert Jeffress. “[I] preached my first sermon here, and many of our members have that kind of connection.”

Jeffress made it clear the worship center is to be saved at all costs, which presented an interesting challenge for Dallas demolition since one of the buildings is attached with common walls and reinforced steel.

“It will really be dismantling, kind of a piece by piece process to remove the Truett building from the existing sanctuary,” Jeffress said.

The implosion could kick up eight to 12 inches of dust across several blocks. Plywood will protect the stained glass from flying debris, and heavy felt drapes and plastic wraps should prevent the dust from coating the church pews.

“Everything has been well thought out and well planned and it looks like we are good to go,” Jeffress said.

Read more here or view the video below.

Work is underway on the demolition of the Briggsville Dam.

With the removal of the Briggsville Dam expected to begin next week, construction crews from Costello Dismantling Co. of Middleboro began preliminary site work in the North Branch of the Hoosic River on Monday.

“Right now, the crews are prepping for the work and getting their equipment into the river so they can begin dredging the sediment next week,” Town Administrator Michael Canales said Wednesday. “They need to remove approximately 11,000 yards of sediment before they can begin removing the dam.”

The Route 8 dam, which is 15 feet high and spans some 200 feet, will be one of the largest in the state to be removed.

“Because of the bend in the road, the dam doesn’t seem as big as it really is,” Canales said. “Unless you get down in front of it, you don’t realize how big it really is.”

Removal of the dam is expected to be completed by early December, weather permitting. “There’s a push to get it done now, because we can’t do it in the spring when the fish are spawning,” Canales said. “We will have to wait until the summer to complete the project if things aren’t completed by the winter.”

Read more here.

Gold sticker fiasco prompts reintroduction of Jobsworth Award.

If, like me, you were growing up or living in the UK during the 1970s and 80s, you may well remember a TV programme called That’s Life. Hosted by Esther Rantzen (and her teeth), the magazine-style programme was a forerunner of the consumer protection format we see today, interspersed with photos of unusually-shaped vegetables and dogs that could say “sausages”.

But the programme was also responsible for introducing the term Jobsworth (as in “it’s more than my job’s worth”) into the English language to describe companies and authorities that had implemented obscure regulations and policies that caused more grievances than they aimed to correct.

And now, having just seen a new Twitter post from our good friend Rob Kulinski about a demolition contractor who lost a contract because they had the wrong kind of seal on their financial documentation (no, REALLY) we have decided to reintroduce the Jobsworth Award.

And our inaugural winner of the (slightly less than coveted) Jobsworth Mug award is David Tincher, head of West Virginia’s Division of Purchasing, for “officiousness in the face of overwhelming reason”.

Sadly, we’re unable to send the physical award to Mr Tincher for fear of using the wrong kind of packaging, postage stamp etc.

However, if there’s anyone out there that you believe deserves to be “honoured” in this way, please let us know.

Demolition notices served on flats largely owned by murdered Fife businessman.

A number of flats in Glenrothes that were owned by Fife businessman Mohammed Siddique are being served with closure orders because of their shocking condition.

Some of the flats in Durris Drive have been called “uninhabitable.” The businessman has been revealed as the majority owning landlord of two blocks of flats in Tanshall which have been earmarked for demolition by Fife Council after being branded “unfit for human habitation” last week.

The local authority confirmed on Wednesday that officials had met Mr Siddique in March to discuss the state of the properties after an independent structural engineer suggested they should be torn down.

The blocks at 46-69 Durris Drive and 56-79 Huntly Drive have been a blight on the local community for several years and have been particularly prone to vandalism and drug use, prompting the council to take action.

All but one of the 48 flats in the two blocks are in private ownership, with one landlord — Mr Siddique — said to own the majority of the properties on both blocks. The council has now started serving closing orders on each of the flats and, once effective, it can then proceed to serve demolition orders on the blocks.

The decision to pursue demolition came on Thursday, just days before Mr Siddique was shot dead in one of the flats owned by his family in nearby Forres Drive on Sunday night.

Read more here.

New time-lapse video from Armac Group.

As has become obvious over the past few years, there’s nothing we like more than a time-lapse video. And this new one from Armac Group is no exception.

We know very little about the job in question (Armac, if you’re reading this, tell us more) aside from the fact that it involves the demolition of a Coventry road bridge earlier this year. But we’re not the type to let the facts get in the way of a good video:

Charity expresses concern over potential homelessness for country’s citizens.

Amnesty— International, yesterday, called on the Rivers State government, to halt its planned demolitions and evictions in waterfront areas of Port Harcourt, arguing that it will leave over 200,000 people homelessness, if the threat is carried out.

Amnesty in a statement by its Deputy African Programme Director, Tawanda Hondora, said “these planned demolitions are likely to plunge hundreds of thousands of Nigeria’s most vulnerable citizens further into poverty. The government should halt the waterfront evictions until it ensures they comply with international human rights standards.”

The Rivers State government claims the demolition of the waterfronts was necessary to implement the Greater Port Harcourt Master Plan, an urban renewal project launched in 2009.

The development of the waterfront promenade is a central feature of the Master Plan, which encompasses the whole city, but full details have not been made public.

“None of the affected communities have been adequately consulted about these urban renewal plans and this has resulted in a great deal of uncertainty and insecurity. The government must make every effort to identify alternatives to evictions, using them only as a last resort,” he said

Read more here.