Yesterday saw the world’s third largest explosive demolition take place in West Palm Beach.

Initial reports suggest that the long-awaited implosion of the 1515 tower in West Palm Beach was delayed by several minutes when an individual claiming to be part of a TV news crew encroached upon the exclusion zone set up by Advanced Explosive Demolition (AED). Further news coverage claimed that a neighbouring building had been damaged by fly rock ejected by the implosion.

It remains to be seen whether such things will detract from the feat performed by the AED in carrying out the world’s third tallest building implosion.

A full report of the implosion can be found here but, before reading that, we would strongly recommend that you view this excellent video first:

Combined K-25/K-27 facility demolition and clean-up set to pass billion dollar mark.

At a time when some demolition companies are struggling merely to survive and others are making ends meet by selling their souls to the media devil comes news that the clean-up and demolition operation at the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge facility may have already surpassed the billion dollar mark.

According to blogger Frank Munger’s latest post: The cost of the giant demolition and cleanup project at K-25 has been on the rise for years, so when talking with Dept. of Energy Manager Gerald Boyd the other day I asked him if it’d reached the billion-dollar level.

“The thing that changed was that nobody knew the structural condition of that facility until, I guess it was in 2006, when we had a fall accident (a worker fell through a floor) and discovered that the integrity of the building was a lot worse than we thought,” Boyd said. That, in turn, required a complete reassessment of how to take down the building, he said.

Read more here.

Hefty fines for two UK demolition companies following accident that killed worker.

Two UK demolition companies have today been fined a total of £115,000 after a labourer was killed by a falling steel prop. Essex based John F Hunt Demolition Ltd and Bayoak Demo Ltd of London both pleaded guilty to Health and Safety breaches concerning the death of 29-year-old Rafał Przestrzelski in 2005.

The Central Criminal Court, (Old Bailey) heard Mr Przestrzelski, 29, of Wood Green, London N22, was employed as a labourer by demolition sub-contactor Bayoak Demo Ltd. The project was managed by John F Hunt Demolition Ltd, acting as principal contractor.

On 25 July 2005, Rafał Przestrzelski was told to remove a number of steel (Acrow) props supporting a slab of concrete, during the demolition of Telstar House in Paddington, London. Originally there were 13 props, but as each one was removed the load increased on the remainder until the final one was carrying the entire load.

When the props were removed, the concrete slab fell to the ground and an overloaded prop struck Mr Przestrzelski causing fatal internal injuries.

Read the full details here.

Two UK demolition companies have reported a drop in profit despite an increase in turnover.

UK trade magazine Construction News has reported that both 777 Demolition and Coleman & Co., both among the best-known of the UK’s demolition contractors, have both reported lower profits against increased turnovers.

Demolition companies Coleman and 777 Demolition both reported higher turnover but falling profit in accounts for the financial year to 30 April 2009, filed with companies house this week.

Coleman saw its turnover rise by three percent to £15.5 million while 777 enjoyed a six percent increase in turnover to £13.4 million. However, profit before tax fell by £80,000 to £0.5 million for Coleman and by £130,000, to £47,000 for 777 Demolition.

Against the backdrop of one of the worst and longest economic recessions in recent history, the fact that the companies made a profit at all is worthy of applause.

But, possibly because of the timing of this announcement following my earlier (and incorrect) piece on the Three Sisters tower blocks, something else struck me about these figures. As avid reader Jack Westwood pointed out earlier today, Coleman & Co. is the proud owner of the UK’s largest high reach excavator, while 777 owns and operates the country’s third largest high reach.

We might be adding two and two to make five here; but it will be interesting to see the figures posted by DSM – owner of the UK’s second biggest high reach!

Read the full story here.

Failure to disconnect services leaves residents angry and contractor in danger.

It is in the nature of local newspapers to take the side of the poor local resident forced to endure the suffering caused by nearby demolition work. A case in point is this report from the Peebleshire News that bears the headline: Anger Over Demolition Blunders in Peebles.

It then goes on to highlight the “litany of gaffes” made by Coleman & Co., the contractor in question.

However, for those of a demolition persuasion, the article fails to address that perennial elephant in the room; the fact that the client had failed to disconnect the utility services on the site.

Admittedly, if the accusations about the incorrect handling of asbestos and the dislodging of a telepgraph pole are proved correct, then Coleman & Co. will have some explaining to do.

But the temporary loss of telephone connection surely pales into insignificance compared to the loss of life that could have been caused by the service disconnection “oversight”.

Demolition underway on three tower blocks in England’s North West.

The skyline over the twon of Middleton is set to change forever this week as work begins to demolish the Langley tower blocks. The towers, known locally as Three Sisters, are being demolished by PGC Demolition using the UK’s largest third largest high reach excavator that is on cross-hire from 777 Demolition.

The tower blocks are being demolished as part of the estate’s multi-million pound Housing Market Renewal (HMR) programme which aims to revitalise the local housing market by tearing down defunct properties to make way for new housing.

Click here to read more or watch the video below.

New video captures simultaneous side-by-side tower block implosion.

We’re delighted to bring you the latest behind-the-scenes look at an implosion, this time from Rio de Janeiro. This video was sent to us by Fabio Bruno (who is featured in the video) of Fabio Bruno Construcoes and, aside from being a good video, it’s also a great way to learn to count from 10 to zero in Portuguese!

K-33 uranium enrichment structure to go way of K-25 and K-27

The US Department of Energy on Tuesday released a request for proposals to demolish the K-33 building as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act-funded cleanup program in Oak Ridge.

The K-33 building is a 260,000 square metre (2.8 million-square-foot) structure that was decommissioned and cleaned up by BNFL Inc. in the 1990s as part of reindustrialization efforts at the government’s former uranium-enrichment plant. The processing equipment was removed, as well as most of the hazardous materials left from the old operations there. But subsequent efforts to find an industrial tenant for K-33 were unsuccessful. That’s why the old building is being torn down.

A demolition contract will be awarded by DOE’s Consolidated Business Center in Cincinnati, which uses a nationwide Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity contracting tool for the federal cleanup program.

The project will involve demolition of the building and disposal of wastes, most of which will be sent to DOE’s landfills on the federal reservation in Oak Ridge.

DOE plans to use some of the Recovery Act funding that was saved when DOE opted to scale back another project at the nearby K-27 building. About $118 million in stimulus funding had been set aside for preliminary work on K-27 to set the stage for its demolition later. Now, however, DOE plans to spend only $20 million on the K-27 work, wrapping up that activity by September 2010. That means about $90 million is available for other projects.

Read more here.

Those people gawking from your site permieter may be afflicted with a common illness.

We’ve all seen them, armed with their cameras, camcorders and mobile phones at the ready, peering through the site perimeter fencing and offering health and safety advice to anyone in earshot. But, apparently, these individuals with a strange fixation on the demolition business are not merely gawkers and rubberneckers.

According to an article in the Jackson Citizen Patriot, these people are more rightly known as demaholics, people addicted to demolition.

So, in honour of the famous 12-point plan: My name is Mark and I am a demaholic. I have been clean for the past 48 hours (here’s where you applaud) but there is a hard hat sat on my desk alongside my camera…..and maybe a quick look at a local demolition site wouldn’t be too bad….it would only be a quick look, and then I could get clean again

Work underway in Nashville to clear the way for new Music City Convention Center.

Chances are, there’s a country music song that bemoans the demolition of an old and much-loved building to be replaced by a fancy new structure. If that’s the case, it will certainly be getting an airing in Nashville, the home of country music as the demolition crews begin work on a contract to clear the way for the creation of a new Music City Convention Center.

See the video of the initial demolition work below, or click here for the full story.