Access, before anything else
This is the one people underestimate most, and it is the one that moves the price furthest.
The same 900 square foot apartment strip-out is a completely different job on the ground floor with a driveway than it is on the fourth floor of a walk-up, or in a tower with a two-hour daily service lift window. Same scope, same volume, same tools, potentially double the labour.
When you compare quotes, check that each contractor has understood how material actually leaves your building. A quote that assumed kerbside loading on a job that needs a stair is not a cheaper quote, it is a wrong one.
Weight, not volume
Debris is charged and hauled by weight far more than by apparent size. That is why a small bathroom can cost more than a large bedroom.
A pre-war bathroom floor is usually a thick cement mud bed on wire lath. Concrete is dense. Plaster and lath is heavier than drywall. A modest room full of any of these fills a container by weight long before it fills it by volume, and the load count is what you are paying for.
Asbestos
If the building predates April 1987 and the work needs a permit, an assessment is required. That has a cost and, more importantly, a programme position: it sits ahead of everything.
If it comes back positive above threshold, licensed abatement has to happen before demolition can start. That is a separate contractor, a separate permit and a separate line in the budget. It is the largest single swing factor on an older building, which is why finding out early matters so much.
Whether anything needs holding up
Removing a non-structural partition is straightforward. Removing anything carrying load means designed temporary support: needles, props or shoring, installed before the element comes out.
That brings an engineer, a design and materials into a job that might otherwise have been two people and a skip. If a quote for removing a structural wall does not mention temporary support, ask why.
How much of the filing you are asking for
There is a real difference between "demolish this" and "get us to the point where demolishing this is legal". Utility disconnect requests, adjoining-owner notice, rodent certification, site safety submission and the asbestos coordination are all work.
Decide which of it you are carrying and which you want carried, and make sure the quotes you are comparing assume the same answer.
The smaller factors that still add up
- Occupied buildings. Sealed separation, agreed hours and protected routes cost time.
- Out-of-hours working. Often unavoidable in commercial buildings, and priced accordingly.
- Reinforcement. Reinforced concrete takes several times longer than plain concrete of the same thickness.
- Separation. Material that arrives at the facility already sorted costs less to handle than a mixed load.
- Distance to a permitted transfer station. Longer runs mean fewer loads per day.
- Anything that cannot travel as C&D, such as tanks, appliances or contaminated material, which needs its own route.
How to get a real number
Tell us the address, roughly when the building went up, what is coming out, what has to stay, and how a truck reaches the door. That is usually enough to scope the job on the phone and tell you which of the factors above apply to yours.
The firm number comes after we have seen the site, because access and what is behind the finishes are the two things a photograph cannot settle.
