Bronx, NY
Interior Demolition in the Bronx
We take a space back to whatever your next stage needs. Bare structure, a clean shell, or something in between, with the parts that are staying protected and untouched.
What comes out, and what stays
Interior demolition is the inside of a building coming out while the building stays up.
In this borough the material list is remarkably consistent, because so much of the stock went up in the same thirty years. Plaster on wood lath and plaster straight onto brick. Parquet laid over sleepers bedded in a fill nobody has looked at since. Tile on a mortar bed in every bathroom. Cast-iron waste stacks behind the wall. Dropped ceilings put in later, hiding a first ceiling that is still up there.
All of it takes longer to remove than drywall on studs, and none of it is a surprise. The surprise, when there is one, is the layout. A hundred-year-old apartment that has been reconfigured twice does not match the plan somebody hands us, so we mark out what stays with you in the space rather than on paper.
What stays is the structure, the facade, the windows, the risers, and anything you name. Partial is normal. One kitchen and one bathroom out of an occupied apartment is a real scope and we run it as one. In the trade that is selective demolition, and it is most of the interior work in the Bronx.
What decides the programme here
01 The elevator
One car, and it belongs to the residents
In a six-storey pre-war building there is usually no freight elevator. There is one passenger car, and everything from your apartment leaves in it during whatever windows the superintendent releases.
The cab is lined and the lobby floor and the mailbox wall are boarded before the first bag rides in it. Material is broken down, bagged and staged on protected floor inside the work area, then moved in those windows and carted away by a registered carting company. Nothing waits in the lobby or the hall.
A building giving two hours in the morning is a completely different programme from one giving the afternoon, on identical square footage. That is why we ask before we quote.
02 The stair
Buildings with no lift at all
Across the South Bronx and much of the West Bronx the housing is walk-up. There is nothing to book and nobody to ask, which removes the slowest step in the job.
What replaces it is labour. Loads sized to what one person can carry, treads and handrails boarded for the duration, and a crew working as a chain. Slower per ton and entirely predictable, which on a fixed date is worth more than it sounds.
03 The street
Storefronts, and where the container stands
On Westchester Avenue, White Plains Road and Jerome Avenue the unit is a storefront with apartments above it and an elevated structure overhead. There is no dock and no rear service road.
Everything comes out to the curb. Where the container can legally stand, and for how long, decides how the whole job is staged, and it gets settled before we price rather than on the first morning.
Before the first wall
Two things sit ahead of the work in almost every Bronx building.
The first is the asbestos assessment. Where the building went up before 1 April 1987 and the job needs a Department of Buildings permit, a DEP certified asbestos investigator has to inspect the areas the work will disturb and file with the Department of Environmental Protection before that permit can issue. Essentially all of the borough's pre-war apartment stock predates that date, so treat it as the normal first step rather than an exception. It is the owner's filing and it is the commonest reason a start date moves.
The second is the hours. Construction activity runs 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM on weekdays, and anything outside that needs an After Hours Variance filed a few business days ahead. In a building with a hundred households the building's own hours are usually narrower than the city's, and usually should be.
We will tell you which of these your job triggers on the first call.
Across the Bronx rooftops
How we work in a live building
The lobby is the front door
Cab, corridors, floors, mailboxes and door frames covered before anything comes down. It is faster to protect a cab than to repair one, and the super sees it first.
Dust control
Openings sealed, negative pressure where it is warranted, and cutting kept wet where the material allows. Neighbours down the hall notice dust long before they notice noise.
Noise in windows
The loud work is grouped and run inside the hours the building and the city allow, so it is predictable for everyone else in the stack.
Daily clear-down
The space is left safe and swept at the end of each day. Nothing is stored in a corridor, a stair or the lobby overnight.
Common questions
What is interior demolition?
Taking out the inside of a building while the building itself stays up. Walls, ceilings, floors, fittings and services come out. The structure, the facade and usually the windows stay.
It is what most people mean when they say a space needs gutting before a fit-out or a renovation, and in the Bronx it is nearly all of the demolition work there is.
What is the average cost for interior demolition?
There is no useful average, because the same square footage can differ several times over in price.
Here the two things that move it most are the plaster and the elevator. A drywall storefront with a container at the curb is straightforward. The same area of plaster on lath, on the fifth floor of a pre-war building, leaving through a shared passenger car for two hours a day, with parquet and sleepers to lift, is a much larger job for the same drawing.
We walk the space, price the actual scope, and say which parts could still move once the plaster is off. Tell us your date when you call and we will tell you what we can hold.
Do I need an asbestos assessment before interior demolition can start?
If the building was built before 1 April 1987 and the work needs a Department of Buildings permit, then yes, one has to be filed before that permit is issued. In this borough that describes almost every pre-war apartment building.
A DEP certified asbestos investigator inspects the areas the work will disturb and files Form ACP-5 with the Department of Environmental Protection. Where material is present but sits under the DEP thresholds and will not be disturbed, the ACP-5 can still be issued.
It is the customer's own filing and not part of a demolition contract, and the permit waits on it, so order it early.
What hours can demolition work happen in New York City?
Construction activity may be carried out from 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM on weekdays. Anything outside that needs an After Hours Variance from the Department of Buildings, filed a few business days before the first day and able to cover days inside a fourteen day window.
In a Bronx apartment building the city's window is rarely the one that matters. A building with a hundred households will set narrower hours of its own, and on an attached block of two-family houses the real limit is what the neighbours either side will live with. Where the two differ, the building's rules decide your schedule.
What happens to the debris?
Clearing it is part of the job. You do not have to arrange it separately.
Material is broken down, bagged or bundled, and staged on protected floor inside the work area. It moves out in the elevator windows the building gives us, or down the stair where there is no lift, to the loading point. Carting off site is done by a registered carting company and we coordinate the two halves so they line up.
Where a container is needed at the curb, its placement has its own rules about where and how long it can stand, and that is worked out before it arrives. You get the space back swept and clear.