I’ve got a job coming up which involves demoing wood lath and plaster from a 6000 square foot apartment building. Somehow or another, I’ve got to come up with an estimate for the labor involved.
How would you approach this? One thought I had is to calculate the amount of lath and plaster in the building, calculate the volume of demo it would generate (though that is a wild card as well, as much of a dumpster is filled with air?) and then figure out how many 40yd dumpsters it would be reasonable to fill in a day. Sound crazy?
It’s times like this that I wish I had kept better records! Be nice to be able to go back and do a similar calculation on past jobs.
Anyone have any advice?
Replies
I would probably take material volume and at least double it to account for air. You can probably get more mileage out of the dumpster(s) if you separate the lath from the plaster. Lay the lath in straight when you load; plaster will somewhat pack in densely if not mixed around with the lath.
Labor-wise, I guess I would walk myself through this in my mind, following each step and trying to catch anything I may miss by just sitting down long enough to thoroughly think this through. Then, if I double the hours I've come up with I'll be just about right on!
don't forget to allow for knocking the nails in!!!!!!
One rule of thumb I've used is that a square foot of living space equals a cubic foot of dumpster space. Don't know how accurate that is but it might get you in the ballpark.
A recent price I got to tear down a 1500sf ranch house included 40 tons of structure and 65 cubic yards of foundation (walkout basement).
Does that include the framing materials? I have two of these beauties to deal with. The neighboring building is 2500 square feet. I figured out today that there is about 12000 square feet of lath and plaster. Figuring it roughly an inch thick, (generous probably) it comes to about 1000 cubic feet. That's packed solid. I was thinking it would be about twice as much yardage, but could picture smashing a dumpster down to about 1/3. (unless you stacked the lath, which I'm not interested in). So maybe 3 40 yard dumpsters for this building (plus the framing). I like the square foot equalling a cubic foot. At least I can sit in a meeting with the construction manager and developer and sound intelligent. That's the main thing. Who knows how the heck much these kind of things cost?
I dont have any advice on estimating your job, but strip off the plaster first and clean up, then remove the lath. It is much easier to clean up this way and will use far less dumpster space
if you can't dazzle them with brillance,baffle them with bullstuff.[cleaned up for the little ones here on bt]
always keep a straight face that way they know you know:]if a man speaks in the forest,and there's not a woman to hear him,is he still wrong?
I gutted the first floor of my 100 year old farm house about 5 years ago. 8 foot walls, lath and plaster walls and ceilings, various closets, etc. total of about 900 sq ft floor area.
Took about a day for my wife and I to take the trim out and catalogue, and a day for me and four guys to knock it and shovel it out into a fifteen yard dump trailer. Net weight of the debris was around 12k lbs. and the trailer was HEAPED. Two things, only myself and one of the guys had any construction experience, and the house was up on cribbing from the move and so we were able to back the trailer up UNDER the front door and scoop everything in from there.
Naive but refreshing !
Do you have separate dumpsters for heavy materials like plaster? I've filled up large volume dumpsters ( I forget the yardage) and had one driver empty out half of it. That was fun to watch. He was right in doing it. He didn't want to be overloaded.
Plaster can get heavy.
Just one point: If disposal costs are high you need to figure in extra time to "optimize" packing of the dumpsters, separating recyclables, etc.
Another question for you is how do tipping fees work where you are. Here there's a charge for removal, plus a charge for weight. Cheaper if you separate materials but $10 recycling facility guys can do it just as well. NO heaping of materials, if it's above the rim they'll throw it off.
We pay about 350 bucks to empty a 40 yard dumpster. Never had anyone complain about weight yet. I'll have a "dumpster tender" to even out the load as it fills, but I wouldn't go so far as to sort wood from plaster. Anyone know where they get those chutes/tubes you see on commercial demos?I've been also putting some thought into how to move the plaster around INSIDE the building. It's 65' long, and I assume I will have a dumpster/chute on one end. Typically on a smaller job, I would just use heavy duty garbage cans. Going to have to figure out some kind of cart. Maybe even a wheelbarrow, though that has pretty small volume.
You can usually rent the shoots from a scaffold rental center. They usually charge for wear on the shoot itself.Jeb
Remove the plaster first, then the lath. After the plaster is off the walls, pull the bottom foot or so of lath, and get the tailings out of the wall cavity. Assume at least 1" of thickness total, multiply the square footage of wall and ceilings by 144 to cubic inches, and add about 20%. This does not include air.
Those big flat coal shovels work good for the plaster. 3' pry bars for the lath. Once you get one side of a wall off, whack the back side of the other to break the keys.
As for time, I'm not sure. Don't forget to budget for plenty of dust masks and tyvek suits.
I second what brian says. I'll add that a two wheel wheelbarrow to the shoot would be less strenuous than garbage cans. Also, add in a few cheap window fans to try to suck out the dust.
prep is everything there. i did a few of these: fans for dust, GARBAGE CHUTE where possible, firemans axe or equivalent for bashing and removal, and well packed dumpers. two conscientious guys can do a bedroom in a little over a half day, demoed and cleaned and i bet a 40 yarder can take 15 rooms. Dan Lynn, Dan Lynn Construction, Joliet, IL
QUOTES TO LIVE BY: 'The bitterness of poor quality lasts far longer than the sweet taste of a low price....' 'Anything worth doing is worth doing well' "If it was easy......ANYBODY could do it"
Marson
National Estimator came up with this labor number.
I could not find anything about volume of debris.
I figured 6,000 x 5 for ceiling and walls and then divede by 9 for Sq Yards and came up with 3,333 SF of demo.
Rich
"National Estimator came up with this labor number.I could not find anything about volume of debris.I figured 6,000 x 5 for ceiling and walls and then divede by 9 for Sq Yards and came up with 3,333 SF of demo."Hey thanks for that Rich. Just so I follow you, you are multiplying floor square footage by 5 to arrive at ballpark square footage of walls and lid? Then dividing by nine for square yards of plaster? I came up with about 22000 square feet of plaster by actually scaling it off of the print. That yields roughly 2400 SY of plaster demo.
Marson
Did I really spell that badly? Holy Cow where is my proof reader.
I figured 3,333 SY and I wrote SF. I am sorry.
I redid the NE estimate with 2400 SY and $40/hour average crew wage.
Merry Christmas
Rich