Rec and Sports

Building Demolition: The Different Methods

Demolition is the destruction of a building or structure. It is different to deconstruction in that deconstruction is the taking down of a building carefully while removing valuable or recyclable materials for re-use

When it is just standard houses of 2 or 3 stories for demolition, it is quite a simple process and will usually just be a case of workmen using a few machines such as bulldozers and cranes to simply tear the building down.

Larger buildings may require a wrecking ball to aid the demolition process. A wrecking ball is an immensely heavy weight that is swung on a cable attached to a crane into the side of the building in order to batter it to the ground.

Although wrecking balls are certainly an effective way of tearing a building to the ground, they are difficult to control and without the right expertise behind the controls, they can be extremely dangerous.

Another demolition method for particularly large buildings is implosion. This is where experts precisely place explosive devices so that when the blow up the building is levelled to the ground in seconds. It is however the most hazardous demolition method and there are many risks involved.

One of the most important areas of consideration when using the implosion method is, as you might expect, reducing collateral damage to a minimum. Experts place the explosives so that when they go off, it is only the building supports that are destroyed and then the building itself simply falls down into itself from gravity alone. This is because if parts of the actual building were to be blown up, then big chunks of debris would fly off everywhere potentially harming people of buildings that are close by.

Another danger of building implosion is that the explosives may not destroy all supports equally and therefore the building would not collapse evenly, potentially causing a much wider damage area which of course, could easily harm, if not kill onlookers.

Although you may not have thought it, cloud cover is a key factor to consider when planning an implosion. The reason for this is that the implosion itself creates a shockwave that fires upwards and if the sky is clear, then the shockwave will carry on going upwards not harming anyone. However if there is low cloud cover, then the wave will hit them and fan out, breaking most windows in its path and probably damaging some buildings that are close by.

Although given the time it takes, implosion seems like the obvious choice for any tall building demolition, what a lot of people don’t realise is how much time goes into the preparation for implosion. All of the inner walls have to be taken out and the columns must be encased in fabric and fencing. Also an extensive study of the surrounding area has to be carried out before the decision can be made about whether or not to implode the building. Despite its popularity among spectators, implosion is usually a last resort for the demolition of a building.