Demolition involves plenty of noise, big machinery and a lot of dust.
But today’s demolition contractor offers more than just brawn. Being a top choice demolition contractor means having multifaceted skills in just about every aspect of jobsite preparation, from remediation and abatement to materials recycling.
“It’s not just about getting in and smashing stuff,” says Scott Knightly, president of EnviroVantage, Inc., Epping, N.H. “It’s more selective—you have to be able to do mold remediation, lead and asbestos removal, and do it quickly.”
EnviroVantage, which has performed interior demolition of 25 historic mills in the past 15 years, grew from a $5 million company to an $8 million company last year. As the founder, Knightly has pioneered procedures for the safe handling of hazardous materials like lead, and helped the state of New Hampshire write a new set of environmental regulations.
EnviroVantage concentrates on schools, historic mills, hospitals and public projects throughout New England. In these historic buildings, one of the major challenges is finding surprise elements—walls behind walls, hidden asbestos, old boilers no one knew existed, and even flocks of pigeons.
This was certainly the case when the company undertook a project at Plymouth State University to gut the large Mary Lyon Dormitory and remove lead, asbestos and mold, old plumbing and pipe systems, and a decaying chimney. During the project, crews encountered all sorts of surprises, including a 10-ton cement box full of asbestos that had to be chipped apart, hand-carried from a 10-foot-deep trench and removed from the building in small pieces.
“Part of the challenge is uncovering rehabs that took place in the past,” Knightly says. “Also, in the mills, you have to be extra gentle and kind to keep the exterior intact to gain historical building tax credits.”
Knightly’s crews make it possible for the next renovation team to work with a clean slate to install elements like insulation and energy-efficient windows and complete interior build-outs.
“Other crews don’t want to come in to do their work until they have a clean building, and architects want to see certification a building is clean before they design the rebuild,” Knightly says. Throughout the demolition and remediation work process, industrial hygienists are brought in to test levels of harmful agents like mercury so work can continue according to local building codes.
EnviroVantage is currently restoring a 5,800-square-foot textile mill and converting the space into an upscale 200-seat Common Man Restaurant and a 36-room inn with a view of the falls in Claremont, N.H. The job includes asbestos abatement, sandblasting lead paint and interior demolition, with the challenge of preserving the mill’s heavy wooden timber framing system, expansive brick wall surfaces and unique granite sills and cornice molding. The restaurant and inn will open this summer.
“It’s a lot of fun to know we were wearing hazmat suits to do the initial walkthrough, and then begin to see the end result of a gorgeous granite mill on the waterfront,” Knightly says. “It takes vision and imagination.”
Recycling: A Profit Center
Having workers trained in all aspects of demolition and remediation is essential for firms in this market sector. And with owners’ emphasis on meeting green building criteria, jobsite crews also must be trained to separate and recycle all materials in the waste stream.
Schools in particular desire bragging rights about green building techniques, especially materials recycling.
At a recent project to renovate the Phelps Science Center at Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, N.H., EnviroVantage crews recycled virtually every component of the building and its contents. Teams disassembled desks and sorted wood, plastic and metal parts—along with the building’s sheetrock, cement, bricks, piping, electrical wire and window glass—to recycle or repurpose 90 percent of materials post-demolition.
In another project, EnviroVantage worked with general contractor North Branch Construction, Concord, N.H., to convert a city-owned elementary school building into a 34-unit apartment building in proximity to shops and restaurants in Manchester, N.H. Crews filled multiple 100-yard-long dumpsters with materials for recycling.
“Recycling is the way to get the best value out of a job, by putting all the materials to future use so nothing goes to waste,” Knightly says.
As Cherry Demolition, Houston, can attest, these recycling efforts can be a significant profit center for a demolition firm. With 30 years of experience in the industry, Cherry began its recycling operations in 1995, and the business took off when the Texas Department of Transportation approved the use of recycled concrete for road projects in 1996.
Now with three divisions, Cherry Demolition, Cherry Crushed Concrete and Cherry Concrete Removal, Ltd., the company owns three recycling yards in the Houston area and also performs onsite crushing operations at demolition jobsites.
As one of the largest recyclers in Texas, it recycled more than 1.65 million tons of concrete last year, up from 1.01 million tons in 2007. In addition, Cherry recycles the rebar contained within post-demolition concrete—recycling 49,500 tons of steel in 2008, an increase from 39,000 tons in 2007.
Staying competitive on the recycling end of the market helps bring business to the demolition side of the market, and vice versa. The fact that clients don’t need to hire separate firms for demolition and waste removal is a major selling point.
“From a recycling standpoint, our crushed concrete operations are continuing to run strong,” says Leonard Cherry, owner of Cherry Demolition. “There is still a demand for aggregate as well as for stabilized materials, which will be consumed in the rebuilding of infrastructure. We are very eager to hear how the new president’s plan for infrastructure spending will revitalize our national economy.”
The company is feeling the effects of the economic downturn, however, with the scrap steel market plummeting 75 percent in a 60-day period last year, Cherry says. Although the company predicts a 10 percent reduction in total business volume this year, Cherry is putting faith in the interior demolition market while the industrial and commercial sectors suffer.
“We expect an increase in interior gut-out work as new construction continues to falter and the focus turns to renovating existing properties,” Cherry says.
Full-Circle Service
Shawn Smith, director of project management for Nuprecon, Snoqualmie, Wash., also believes interior strip-and-gut work will remain a reliable business niche this year.
“We have a couple of large structures in downtown Seattle that years ago might have been demolished to start fresh, but given the market, more owners are leaning toward rebuilding historic structures,” Smith says.
For example, the Joshua Green Found-ation has invested in a complete gut and seismic upgrade of its historic headquarters in the heart of the city, and hired Nuprecon for the specialized job.
The company adopts a full-circle approach to demolition, abatement, site remediation and recycling. Aiming to be a one-stop-shop, Nuprecon offers pickup and dropoff services for both single-stream and commingled materials.
Because encountering and handling hazardous materials is an inevitable part of demolition work, Nuprecon employees are cross-trained to handle hazardous materials so operations need not grind to a halt—which is especially important for projects requiring a fast turnaround.
The company’s recycling division, ReNu Recycling Services, has been the fastest area of growth for the company since it was founded in 2001. ReNu is now the largest concrete and demolition materials hauler in the state of Washington.
“From an environmental standpoint, there is a lot of drive to avoid landfilling materials to create an overall cost reduction,” says Todd Smith, ReNu’s division manager. “There is a big focus to recycle more and more of the materials we generate, from plastics and carpet to fiber materials like cardboard and paper.”
The market for scrap wood products remains strong in the Northwest, Smith says, because they can be used to produce wood-derived fuel.
Nuprecon is finding opportunities in school abatement, as well as military and park service projects.
In one unique project, Nuprecon drove heavy demolition equipment to an 8,000-foot elevation on Mount Rainier, Wash., to perform a complete teardown of the old Jackson Visitor Center after the National Park Service built a new, energy-efficient structure at the site. Because of the job’s elevation and environmental considerations, the work involved old-fashioned methods, such as using a wrecking ball
to demolish the top sections of the building, as well as modern demolition
technology.
This diversity of services, and a talent for troubleshooting, makes for a successful demolition business.
“Right now we’re taking this time to better develop our relationships with developers, owners and government agencies to promote the comprehensive package of services we offer,” Shawn Smith says.
While each company operates in a different climate and construction market, one thing unifies Nuprecon, EnviroVantage and Cherry Demolition: a multifaceted approach to demolition, remediation and recycling—and more brains than brawn.