This article is about how to demolish a small building and level the ground. This article shows you the important steps of tearing down a small building safely and as to salvage as much materials as possible. Moreover, the project also shows how to level the ground and prepare the area for the construction of a future 20×22 workshop. In addition, a video of the process is included so you can see everything with lots of details.
I hope this tutorial is helpful and you will be more accustomed with the steps and techniques needed to tear down an old building. Remember that you can do it in several ways, including using just hand tools. However, we had access to the backhoe digger and that speed up the process. In addition, the small dump truck was a great machinery to take away the debris and the excess top soil. See all my Premium Plans HERE.
Made from this plan
Tools
- shovel
- wheelbarrow
- buckets
- hammer
Time
- 2 days
Tearing Down a Workshop – DIY Tutorial
How to Demolish a Small Building
This is the small building we are going to tear down and then level the ground. This is a small storage building made from concrete blocks and with a lean to roof. The building is built on a concrete slab and it has a light foundation. We will be clearing the area because I will build a nice workshop, large enough for both my car a
First of all, you need to clear the area around the building you are going to demolish. In my case, we had a lot of construction materials around the building which we moved one by one. In addition, I had a metal scaffold which we moved to another location using my truck.
After clearing the area, we salvaged the front door and the metal roof sheets. We also took down the rafters and the slats.
In this image you can see us removing the door jambs.
Next, you can proceed to the actual demolishing of the building. Time for the heavy machinery: the backhoe with digger. The Case 580 SR is a brilliant machinery and of great help when it comes to tearing down building or leveling the ground. We used the front loader bucket to give a push to the small building. Make sure there is none around the building and work slowly, so the walls don’t damage the surroundings.
The back wall of the building is still standing up so it’s time to take care of it, as well. We used the backhoe to pull the wall so it doesn’t fall over the back fence. It”s really easy when you are using a powerful 4×4 backhoe such as out Case 580 SR.
Then it is time to load the debris to the truck and clean the area. First we loaded the dump truck using the backhoe. We made room so we can turn the backhoe around and use the front loader to fill the dump truck.
As you can see, there are a lot of debris left from the demolition, even if the building is relatively small (12’x16′).
We used the front loader to clean the area. The front bucket has a capacity of 1 m3.
Unload the bucket to the dump truck and way you go…
Next, we had to remove a few trees from the area of the future workshop. We used a chainsaw to chop down the trees and then we used the backhoe to remove the stump.
Next, we used a water level to determine how much we have to dig in the ground to make the area flat. Set the desired level and then check different point across the area and determine how much you need to remove from the top soil.
Our small dump truck is of great help, because we made over 15 runs to get rid of all the debris and top soil.
Another tree down… to make room for the future workshop.
We used the water level again to check the progress. We are close to the goal so things are looking great.
Please take a look over the rest of my concrete projects and tutorials.
Demolishing the building and leveling the ground took us more than planner, almost 2 days. However, we are really pleased with the end result, as the area is prepared for the construction of the future workshop. Please take a look over the rest of the Workshop Project, where I show you how to build the 20×22 construction.
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