Demolition halted on Wyatt Building as property owner’s money runs out.

The Wyatt Building in Esparto, California has forced closure of the main street for the final four months due to worries that the crumbling building could tumble into the street.

The property owner, a non-profit group, found the money to begin demolition several weeks ago. Asbestos has been removed from the building, as well as a partially collapsed section has been removed. The bulk of the building was scheduled to come down on September 11, but the money ran out.

The property owner still needs another $16,000 to reach the $82,000 total for the demolition work, as well as work has been halted indefinitely.

Read more here.

D-Drill required to work around high voltage cables on recent sub-station contract.

Safety was top of the agenda for D-Drill (Master Drillers) Limited when they worked within a live substation in Liverpool recently. Morgan Est appointed the diamond drilling and sawing specialist to remove a high voltage reinforced concrete cable gantry using wire line sawing at height.

The major substation in Kirkby remained online during the 2 day project while the concrete sections were cut and removed from a height of 10 metres. “Due to the weight and location of the gantry it was not possible to use high reach crunching excavators as this would have posed a risk to adjacent transformers and local electrical apparatus,” says North West Area Manager, Neil Wood. “D-Drill was appointed because of its ability to provide a highly controlled wire sawing operation, at height, with fully trained BESC operatives. The positioning also meant that all equipment and the concrete waste had to be transported through live sections of the works.”

Three men injured during demolition of Michigan grain silo.

Two men were injured Thursday morning while tearing down and replacing some old silos/grain elevators in Lake Odessa. Three companies, including a demolition crew and a reconstruction crew, were on the property in the 1000 block of 3rd Avenue when the incident occurred at around 9:30 a.m.

One of the contractors, 37-year-old Jason Radke of Plainwell, was in a crane basket 120 feet in the air when the crane collapsed. He landed in a pile of rubble, then was trapped and had to be rescued by emergency personnel, who extricated him. He was airlifted to a hospital where he is in critical condition.

Click here for further details or watch the Wood TV8 video below:

Tower block fire risk could lead to boom for demolition contractors.

One hundred social-housing tower blocks in London face even worse fire risks than Lakanal House in Camberwell, where six people died in July, according to the BBC.

It claims that councils have failed to fire check at least 253 social housing high-rise buildings – which is a criminal offence.

A BBC London team found that while Lakanal House had been given a medium-risk rating on a scale used by councils, thousands of residents live in accommodation condemned as high risk.

Click here for further details.

New video highlights the dismantling of a Komatsu 1250 excavator at the WTC site.

After almost 2 years of excavating soil, shearing steel and hammering concrete Testa Corp’s Komatsu 1250 finally leaves the World Trade Center Construction Site in New York City. And all the action has been captured by videographer Stephen SetteDucatti.

Cranes, Inc. Liebherr 130 ton capacity 885 Crawler crane performs the lifting duties from a stationary deck on the edge of the pit. Lead by a Master Mechanic and Master Rigger this crew of 8 disassembles the 1250 6 stories below street level. Top side a small army of trucks and personnel retrieves each piece, loads them onto waiting trucks and readies them for transport to the next demolition site.

New video captures the last days of Houston’s 103-year old Savoy Hotel.

Pedestrians and drivers in lucky escape as building facade falls into road.

Demolition of a building on Denison Parkway in Corning, New Yorl didn’t go according to plan Thursday evening. During the process, a large section of the façade came crashing down into the street. The lane closest to the building was closed, but the other three lanes had vehicles driving by consistently.

No one appeared to be hurt in the incident and the demolition crew temporarily blocked off all traffic to clean up the fallen debris, some of which fell all the way across the street. A lamp post in front of the building was crushed.

This the second of two buildings being torn down to create more parking space on Market Street. The first came down last week.

Click here to see the video report from News 10 Now.

Former mustard gas factory falls to latest Lee Demolition implosion.

At noon the Rhodia Chemical Factory, in Bristol, stood alone on a derelict site. Seconds later, it was nothing more than a heap of mangled steel.

The implosion was handled by Lee Demolition Group, with managing director David Lee pressing the button.
“It’s taken about four days to prepare the site. It’s involved some pre-cutting within the building. This demolition is quite difficult as the structure is heavy duty.

“It also can be quite hazardous because of chemicals so we’ve had to do all the environmental checks beforehand. We added a charge to 18 of the legs the factory stands on and added the nitroglycerin. Once the button is pressed it sets off the charge.”

Click here to see a video of the implosion.

D-Drill (Master Drillers) helps eat 1.65 tonne concrete biscuits.

On the fourth floor of a chocolate factory in Chester, D-Drill (Master Drillers) Limited got to work cutting out concrete sections for contractors Barry Callebaut Manufacturing UK Ltd.

The job consisted of four 1,850 mm diameter x 275 mm deep heavily reinforced concrete ‘biscuit’ shaped sections, each weighing slightly more than the average chocolate treat at 1.65 tonne each.

Callebaut appointed the diamond drilling and sawing specialist because of the difficult access and control issues that are faced when dealing with food production line areas. D-Drill North West Area Manager, Neil Wood comments, “The team dismissed breaking out by mechanical means because of the obvious dust and debris that would result from this method. With access via a staircase plus demanding lifting capacities, a small goods hoist was also not advised. Our solution was to erect a suitable crash deck below the works area which was then tented and bunded off to contain any water ingress below. All our equipment was hoisted to the works floor 40 metres from the ground and reassembled in place. Openings into the concrete were created by ‘stitch cutting’ using a Zhorro Plunge saw then lowered down to ground level for removal.”

High priority environmental demolition about to start…three years late.

The company responsible for demolishing the PCB-laden Aerovox mill in Massachusetts is about a month away from signing a settlement agreement with city, state and federal environmental officials, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The agreement will pave the way for the long-awaited demolition of the mill, which the EPA first announced as a priority in June 2006. For more than a year, the EPA, state Department of Environmental Protection and city of New Bedford have been negotiating with the potentially responsible party, AVX Corp. of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Read the full story here.