Half House Demolition and Structural Propping in Sydney
Half house demolition in Sydney: Propped to your engineer's design before anything is removed
- Propped to your engineer's design before anything is removed
- Hand and small plant demolition beside the part that stays
- Retained half sealed and weatherproof between stages
- Detailed excavation for the new footings with the same crew
For architects, builders and owners in Sydney keeping part of a good home and rebuilding the rest. We prop what stays to your engineer's design, take down what goes, and hand back a level, weatherproof site.
Or call 02 7908 4944Send us the Sydney plans
What stays, what goes, and our Sydney team will be in touch.
Keep the front, take the back in Sydney
Most of our residential work in Sydney is on good homes where part of the building stays. Keep the front and take the back for an extension. Keep the ground floor and take the top for a new upper level. Remove a wing, a garage or an old extension. Take out a load bearing wall and carry the load on temporary works while the new beam goes in. Separate a semi or a terrace without disturbing the party wall. Hold a heritage facade while everything behind it comes down.
The part that stays is the hard part. It has lost bracing and often a roof line, so it is supported before the first brick moves and kept dry while the new work goes up.
The houses we are asked about in Sydney are Federation and Californian bungalows on the lower north shore in Mosman, Cremorne, Neutral Bay, Hunters Hill, Lane Cove and Longueville, semis and terraces in Paddington, Woollahra, Surry Hills, Balmain, Glebe and Woolloomooloo, harbourside and hillside blocks in Vaucluse, Bellevue Hill, Kirribilli and Lavender Bay where the only way in is down a steep drive, and post-war brick homes in Strathfield, Concord and Ryde getting a second storey.
Not a knockdown service
We will say this plainly. If you are clearing a whole house to rebuild from scratch, we are not the one to call. There are cheaper operators with one excavator and one truck who do simple full house demolitions all day, and they will beat our price every time. We do not chase that work.
We come in when part of the building has to stay standing, be propped, and be handed back level and weatherproof. That is slower, more careful work. You saw cut rather than break, work in small pieces, and prop before you cut. Anyone pricing it at bulk demolition rates has not understood the job.
Heavy structural demolition and major civil work goes to Perfect Contracting within the group.
Propping to your engineer's design
Propping is temporary works, and temporary works get designed. Your structural engineer specifies what goes where, what it carries, and in what order it goes in and comes out. We install to that design and do not improvise on site. We never design the propping ourselves, and the engineer, not us, certifies it. If you do not have a design yet we will say so before we quote, and we can point you at engineers we work with.
What goes in depends on the design: steel props, needles and strongbacks, universal beams, raking and flying shores on party walls. Where it matters the props are inspected and signed off before demolition starts. They stay until the permanent structure has gained strength and come out in the order the engineer specifies. More on our structural propping page.
How a half house job runs
- Plans in. Demolition plan, temporary works design if it exists, photos.
- Before anything comes down. Approvals, hazardous material survey on older homes, services isolated and capped. Asbestos found is removed under our own licences.
- Neighbours. Dilapidation report on the retained structure and adjoining homes, party wall notice where required.
- Propping. Installed to the engineer's design before anything is removed.
- Saw cut. A clean cut at the junction between what stays and what goes, not a torn edge.
- Demolition. In the order the design allows. Hand work and small plant beside what stays, a remote demolition machine such as a Brokk where access is tight, plant craned in when there is no other way.
- Weatherproof. Temporary roofing, wrapping and hoarding on the exposed face.
- Excavation. Slab out, then detailed excavation to the engineer's set out for the new footings.
- Waste. Concrete and brick to crushing, steel to scrap, timber separated, all classified, removed and transported with dockets.
- Strike. Props out in the specified order once the new structure is doing its job.
Dust and noise are controlled and kept to approved hours, trucks stay off the street at school times, and the road is washed. The crew, props and small plant come out of our Marrickville yard, close to the inner west, the eastern suburbs and the north shore, so a Sydney site visit fits around your programme. Sydney blocks are tight. On the harbour the drive is steep, the neighbour is a metre away and there is often no room for a truck at the kerb, so plant gets craned in and rubble goes out in small bins. Terraces share a party wall with somebody who is home all day, and the job has to look right from the footpath.
Jobs we can show you
In Cremorne we did a half house demolition for Built by Dezign: brick walls, timber floors, slab and garage out, brick recycled. In Longueville, for FS Hough, the top floor of a harbourside home came off by hand with the timber floors below retained, and the plant was craned in. In Woolloomooloo the rear of a heritage listed terrace was removed and the walls braced and propped for a rear extension. In Lavender Bay a concrete garage came out with a remote demolition machine.
Within Perfect Group, Perfect Contracting kept the entire facade of a heritage listed harbourside villa in Kirribilli while the interior was demolished, and tunnelled under an occupied harbourside house in Mosman. Those are group jobs rather than ours.
On most of these jobs we stay on for the detailed excavation, so one contractor is responsible from the first prop to the last truckload.
Planning an extension or second storey in Sydney?
Send us the plans and the engineer's details, and tell us what stays and what goes. Call 02 7908 4944 or use the form above.
We also do this work in Wollongong, Newcastle, Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast. See half house demolition, partial demolition and propping, commercial strip out in Sydney, or all Perfect Strip Out services.
Perfect Stripout & Demolition acknowledges the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as Traditional Custodians of the country on which we live and work. We pay our respects to the Traditional Custodians and Elders past, present and future, and honour their connection to the land and ongoing contribution to society.