Tall and awkward structures brought down from the ground with long reach machines, so nobody has to work at height to take them apart. Mills, silos, chimneys, multi storey frames and anything with a footprint too tight for a top down strip get taken back a floor at a time by a machine the operator never leaves.
The machine is chosen from the height, the material and how far back it can safely stand, not from what happens to be free that week. Getting that wrong is the usual reason a high reach job stalls at three quarters height and needs a second visit.
The drop zone is set from the height of the structure and enforced with heras, banksmen and, where the boundary is tight, a scaffold or containment screen. Nobody stands inside it, including us, and the machine works to it rather than around it.
Water suppression runs off the machine and from independent cannons where the boundary is close, and the sequence is arranged so the noisiest work is not sitting over somebody the whole day. On tight sites we will work to agreed hours rather than argue about it later.
Material is pulled back into the footprint and processed at ground level, so the slab stays clear, the crusher can be fed as it goes and there is no growing pile against a structure that is still standing.
The fleet covers the sort of heights the North of England throws up, which is mostly mill and multi storey frame work rather than tower blocks. The honest answer is that it depends on the structure as well as the machine, because a masonry mill and a steel frame at the same height need different reach and a different standing position. Tell us the height and what it is built of and we will tell you straight whether it is a job for us.
For most tall structures, yes, and it is why the work moved this way. Nobody is working at height inside a building that is being taken apart, the operator sits in a protected cab away from the face, and the structure is removed in a controlled sequence rather than by a gang working across it. The trade off is the exclusion zone, which needs real space around the building.
As a rule of thumb the machine wants to stand back roughly the height of the structure, and the drop zone wants to be clear for a similar distance. Tight sites are still doable but they need containment, sometimes a phased approach and occasionally a different method altogether. That is a site visit question, not a phone question.
Chimneys are their own discipline. Depending on the stack, the ground around it and what is close by, it is either taken down from a high reach machine, dismantled from the top by a steeplejack, or in rare open cases felled. We will look at it and tell you which of those it is rather than assume.
Often, yes, and it changes the plan rather than stopping it. Working hours get agreed, the exclusion zone gets set from the far side of the boundary, screening goes up and the sequence is arranged so the face being worked is turned away from whoever is closest.
Run from the yard at Poorsland Barn near Clitheroe, with machines out across Lancashire and into Yorkshire and Greater Manchester most weeks. Getting somebody out to look at a building is rarely more than a few days away.
Call for a free site visit and a written price that covers the take-down, the clearance and the disposal.