Lucky escape after Wiltshire building collapses during demolition.

Disaster was narrowly averted after a section of a building being demolished collapsed into a public thoroughfare full of shoppers. An estimated 10 metre piece of the former British Home Stores (Bhs) building broke away spilling brickwork onto the pavement and causing panic in The Parade at about 10.30 am yesterday.

The building is being demolished to make way for a number of shops. Although no one was injured in the incident, workmen said “death or maiming” was only averted by the safety scaffolding, which contained the wall and held up under the intense pressure.

The scaffolding was held up, in part, by a lamp post which was bent during the incident. “That scaffolding has saved lives,” said Cliff Flanagan, from Skanska Paving. “If it wasn’t for the strength of it all that debris would be in the street where people were walking.”

The contractors, Sisk UK, said the company had been conducting “controlled demolition” during the collapse.
Ian Wright, the company’s national business development manager, said: “The part of the building, a roof slab, that came off was to come down in a controlled way, but it came down unexpectedly. The cladding did its job and contained what had fallen. The HSE has been working with our team today. We will be investigating and working overnight to make it safe.”

Read the full story here.

NASA to demolish Kennedy Space Center towers.

The servicing towers at the Kennedy Space Center’s launch pad 39B will be demolished this summer to ready the complex for an uncertain future.

The $1.3 million job was originally planned to begin outfitting the seaside launch pad to host Ares 1 rockets, the booster NASA was planning to carry crews to orbit after the space shuttle’s retirement. NASA is going ahead with plans to bring down the fixed and rotating service structures at pad 39B, even though the Ares 1 rocket and the entire Constellation program are being axed.

Officials say they are continuing with the pad facelift to prepare the facility to support future commercial or heavy-lift rocket development work. But the identity of the historic pad’s next user is unknown.

New York-based LVI Services Inc., will begin work in late June or early July. The demolition will not use explosives like those used on other abandoned launch pads, but will be dismantled in a “very controlled” process as workers take apart the towers one piece at a time.

Read the full story here.

Demolition underway at major UK steelworks.

Ron Hull Demolition has begun work at the former Outokumpu steelworks near Sheffield. Production ceased at the facility some two years ago and the site was handed over last month. Following the completion of preparation work, specialist teams have now started taking down the former mills and workshops.

The project is expected to take around twelve weeks in preparation for a multi-million pound redevelopment.

Ron Hull Operations Director Martin Wall said: “From our point of view the operation is relatively straightforward. All of the steel making machinery and equipment has now been removed from the buildings after being bought by firms around the world, so we’re dealing with empty shells.

“The site does have important gas and electricity supplies running through, not to mention a high pressure water main, but that’s nothing we’re not used to dealing with and we are not anticipating any problems.

“The most spectacular part of the demolition will be the removal of the 100-foot-high furnace tower. At one stage we did consider explosive demolition but because of the proximity of a railway line and buildings not scheduled for demolition we are bringing in a high reach machine to take it down traditionally.”

In line with modern demolition practice, almost all the materials recovered from the site are to be recycled.

Read the full story here.

Builder behind McGuire Apartments says there’s no need to demolish the block.

Just 24 hours after it was announced that the 9-year old McGuire Apartments in Belltown, Seattle were to face demolition due to structural faults and high repair costs, the builder behind the 25-storey high rise has claimed that demolition is not, in fact, necessary.

“Our experts … have conducted sophisticated, thorough testing of the building components at issue and determined that it is entirely safe,… ” a spokeswoman for McCarthy Building Companies of St. Louis said in an e-mail on Monday. “With reasonable remediation, maintenance and monitoring, long-term ongoing operations could continue.”

The owner and builder have been mired in litigation over the building’s construction for more than three years.

Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development said in a letter to Kennedy Friday that it had reviewed engineering reports on the McGuire’s structural problems and agreed the building is deteriorating and should be vacated.

Read the full story here.

Tenders close as fears grow that wind could fell Athlone cooling towers.

Emergency measures have been taken to close the N2 and protect people when the north-westerly wind is stronger than 65km/h – for fear that a strong wind could cause the Athlone cooling towers to be blown over, and that parts of it could fall on this busy highway.

The tenders for the demolition of the two cooling towers of the redundant Athlone power station closed on Friday.

Clive Justus, mayoral committee member for utility services, said the winter wind from the north-west is usually stronger than the south-easterly. At the Athlone cooling towers, this north-westerly wind blows towards the N2. “With a wind speed of over 85km/h, the towers could collapse. We don’t want it to be blown over and have pieces falling on the road,” said Justus.

The provisional demolition date is May 30, which is less than two weeks before the start of the World Cup Soccer Tournament. One of FIFA’s requirements is that the N2 in particular – as an important route between the Cape Town International Airport and the CBD – must be in perfect condition.

Read the full story here.

Seattle apartment block faces demolition less than a decade after it was built.

Hundreds of residents are being unexpectedly forced out of a 9-year-old Seattle highrise after engineers found extensive structural defects so severe that the building will have to be demolished.

Those who live and work in the area said the scaffolding around the McGuire Apartments has been up so long, it’s become a fixture in the Belltown neighborhood. Renters in the building said when the property management company asked to meet with residents over the weekend, many expected an update on the repair work. Instead, they were told they had until the end of the year to vacate the 25-story building, which will have to be dismantled.

In a statement, the building owner, the Carpenter Tower LLC, blamed “extensive construction defects which are financially impractical to repair.”

Engineers said the problems are caused by the steel reinforcement used to reinforce the concrete. The cable ends weren’t sealed properly and then rusted and corroded.

Read the full story or watch the KIRO TV video here.

Demolition companies warned over dust emissions from house demolition.

City officials in Evansville have written two warning letters in the last several weeks to demolition contractors for failing to control dust stirred up while razing houses.

Dona Bergman, director of the Evansville Environmental Protection Agency, said crews hired for demolition work are expected to spray water on structures they knock down. That helps control dust, which is likely to contain particles of lead paint and other toxic substances if it is coming from old houses.

Bergman said workers from her office responded to the complaints immediately after learning of them. When they arrived at the demolition sites, they found no evidence of dust being stirred up, but did find the sites weren’t being wetted properly. So they issued warning letters.

“We have gone around and double-checked on those properties several times,” Bergman said. “And if we receive any other citizens’ complaints, we’ll get back out there and check on it.”

Bergman said the fine for breaking the rules starts at $50 a day for each violation and can rise as high as $7,500 a day for each violation. “Just the threat of that gets people’s attention,” she said.

Read the full story here.

It’s been a long time coming; but the Texas Stadium is finally down.

The former home of the Dallas Cowboys was imploded earlier today; if you didn’t get to see it live, here’s the first of the footage.

European Demolition Association cites “lack of financial transparency” from organiser.

In an unprecedented move, European Demolition Association president Yves Canessa has publicly criticised international magazine publisher KHL, the originators of the Demolition Awards, blaming the organisers’ apparent “lack of financial transparency” as a key reason for the Association’s decision to terminate its agreement.

The EDA had been keen advocates of the inaugural Demolition Awards, using its own conventions as a platform to promote last year’s event. Indeed, senior members of the EDA – including past president Jan Brandis, current vice president Giuseppe Panseri and Canessa himself – were among the judging panel.

However, it is now clear that the EDA and KHL have parted company in a not-entirely-amicable manner, as Yves Canessa’s strongly-worded statement (below) demonstrates:

In 2008 the EDA President signed a one year agreement with KHL to co-operate on the Demolition Awards, which could take place in connection to the annual EDA Autumn Conference.

However, as we recognized that the collaboration with the D&Ri and KHL could open doors to new members for the EDA the board has written a number of letters and has held 2 intensive meetings with KHL in an attempt to find ways of how to work together also in the coming years. Unfortunately, none of the proposed scenarios for collaboration by EDA were accepted by the KHL. The EDA has withdrawn from the jury of the Demolition Awards and is no longer partner with KHL.

The 2010 Demolition Awards and Summit are scheduled to take place on 5 November 2010, once again at the Hotel Okura in Amsterdam.

The Texas Stadium implosion is less than 48 hours away. And you can watch it live.

At 7am local time (1pm GMT), the famous Texas Stadium is scheduled to be imploded; and, thanks to the wonders of the Internet, you can watch it live wherever you are in the world.

If you click here, you can see a live feed from the stadium which, at the time of writing, shows a relatively quiet site on a fine, sunny day. The calm before Sunday’s storm, perhaps.

We will, of course, be scouring the web to bring you the very best recordings of what promises to be one of the highest profile implosions in the demolition world in 2010. But if you want to see it live, don’t forget to be in front of a computer screen at 7am local time (1pm GMT).