# Forum Home Renovation Demolition  Curious about demolition cost

## StrataStruggler

Just read in the weekend paper that the cost to demolish a house is about $5,000.  Is that right.  I would have thought it double that.  Though this was in the glassy magazine section that praised the virtues of Knock down rebuild.  And that renovating an old place costs twice as much as building. 
As someone who is considering buying an old house to renovate over the next fews years was wondering what others thought about this cost comparison.  I have a friend who bought a block of land in order to build a new home and it the costs kept going up and up and up.  If I bought an old house, knocked it down and rebuilt, knowing what I know about my friends experience with the costs, I would be looking at wanting over $900,000 back should i ever sell in an area where $700,000 is expensive.

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## Sir Stinkalot

I would have thought that the figure of $5000 would be on the low side, but they are giving a very vague figure for a cost that would vary considerably depending on all of the factors involved. 
As for knock down and rebuild it possibly would be cheaper if you were to put on one of the mass produced homes. Sure the quality isn't all that great, but when you look at home and land packages you get a lot of house for your buck. A restoration or addition is custom work and full of unknowns which adds considerably to the cost.  
In the medium term we would be looking at putting an extension to our 100+ year old sandstone. I will design it in such a way that the extension will contain all the new wet areas (with the exception of turning one bedroom into.an ensuite) an new living and kitchen area. Whilst the majority of the extension will be new build I would expect the cost of the works to be about the same price as a new 4 bedroom package home. I would hope the level of finish will be higher, but I will be getting considerably less for my $'s. 
You would need to consider your area, the market and your long term goals before making a decision on the best path to take.

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## Bloss

Knockdown includes the work to demolish safely and then the transport and disposal of the waste - waste disposal nowadays will be between $120 - $165 a tonne at the tip face so a regular houses would easily eat up that $5K.

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## ToneG

Have been thinking a lot about this knockdown and rebuild vs. renovate too. I agree with Bloss and Sir Stinkalot - I've had a few quotes  to demolish our small concrete house, with asbestos eaves, in inner Melbourne - all around  $8000-$12,000. Might also depend on what the demo company can salvage (and offset some of their costs)- e.g. if you have lots of floorboards, red bricks, roof tiles etc  in good condition that they can salvage, that might reduce the cost to you.  
Another thing to bear in mind, which was a surprise to me, is that the knockdown-rebuild might also require some extensive site works before you even start rebuilding-we were quoted $15-20K  :Eek:  for root barriers by one volume builder , as we'd like to  to preserve some of the existing trees (Eucalypts) around the perimeter of our block.

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## KrilliC

I've demolished a house a few month ago and it depends on what needs to be demolished. $5000 you would be dreaming at that price. Usually a figure of a minimum of 8K and up is what is required. Mine costed me $9800 (including GST) some will do it without GST but not worth the hassle if anything goes wrong (i.e demolisher stuffs up cleaning etc.) My house was a fibro clad house with asbestos and not that large although it had a concrete driveway about 3.5m wide and 15m long It took around two weeks to demo (mine was a family business so price was competitive).  
other quotes I got were usually around the 12k mark one even quoted me 15k. Remember its a demo so go with a cost effective option but make sure they have the licenses to do it and insurance and your fine.

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## jatt

I thought about it a bit and came up with a plan for disposal/reuse of materials when I moved a house.  Had somewhere to send the old timber of the extension that had to go.  No treated stuff in it, so it all was sent to the folks for kindling.  Iron from entire roof and copper piping was combined with other scrap I had onsite and sent off to scrap.  Adding copper pipes to the equation really helps to make the excercise worth it. 
Only stuff that had to go to tip was insulation and plaster.  A large skip soon saw to that.   
Bearers were chunky enough (one piece) to use as fence posts.  Most of the 4 x 2 hardwood in roof of lean to wernt even discolored, so reused as fence rails.  With a bit of forthought and imagination its surprising what can be easily reused. 
Only thing that even looked remotely like asbestos was a portion of chimney flue, so was lucky on that front. 
Ok it took me some time to pull it apart and transport a few tandem loads , but cost wise definitely worth it for me.

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