Two tips for those who want to tear down and rebuild their house extension after a bout of heavy snow
Posted on: 15 October 2019
If you want to get a demolition contractor to tear down your house extension so that you can rebuild it, but it has been snowing heavily lately, you should follow the advice outlined here.
Get the demolition contractor to remove most of the snow and icicles before they tear down the extension
After bouts of heavy snowfall, it's common for the roofs of buildings to end up covered in thick blankets of snow, and for icicles to form on the bottom halves of their guttering and fascia. If this has happened to your extension, then you should get the demolition contractor to remove some of this snow and ice before they start tearing down this structure. For example, they could use their excavator to gently scrape the snow off of the roof and to knock some of the icicles down (by hitting them with the machinery's bucket).
There are a couple of reasons why you should ask the demolition contractor to do this. Firstly, it will ensure that the tearing down of the extension won't result in a mini-avalanche of snow sliding off the structure's roof and crushing anyone nearby. Additionally, it will ensure that no icicles get flung into your outdoor area; this is critical, as icicles can have incredibly sharp tips that can cause severe injuries if they hit someone.
Secondly, if most or all of the snow and ice on the extension is removed from it before it gets torn down, it will be easier to retrieve and reuse some of the intact and undamaged materials that the extension was made from, as these materials won't end up saturated and potentially ruined by melted snow (which would happen if they were left in a snow-covered pile for a few days). The contractor will probably be quite happy to fulfil your requests, as the vast majority of demolition contractors are well aware of the risks of tearing down structures that are covered in icicles and snow.
Rent a snowplough
After your demolition contractor is done with their work and you are ready to start rebuilding the extension, you should rent a snowplough. The reason for this is as follows: one of the hard parts about doing construction work in the snow is that the snow itself acts as an obstruction that not only makes it hard to build the structure you want to create but also to find a suitable outdoor space in which to put your construction materials.
Using a shovel to dig up and move the snow on the ground would be both exhausting and inefficient, especially if your now-empty plot is quite large. As such, you should rent a snowplough, which will allow you to move large mounds of snow out of the way without tiring yourself out or wasting too much time.
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