"Ghost estate" Bulldozed why cant fittings etc be salvaged? What a waste.

T

thedaras

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I don't know if anyone else noticed this,but I saw some "Ghost estate" on the news earlier on this week and some of the houses/apts were been bulldozed.

For health and safety reasons I can understand that,but I was shocked to see not only the bricks and mortar but all the perfectly fine/windows/doors/bathroom suites etc being bull dozed!
Surely this is utter waste..why could they not have been salvaged and sold?
How come,the Corporation/county councils are not being given these items to be used ?
Baffled!
 

I have to agree with this...there is a market for everything. Someone building a new house, for example, might have been delighted to bid on these.
 
There are lots of baths ,toilets,sinks ,taps,doors,kitchen cabinets,kitchen sinks,and much much more,that could be RECYCLED,Reused in many circumstances,sold to salvage yards,sold at auction. The cost /size is not a logical argument in my opinion as there are always things like that for sale / being bought and being reused and or recycled.
 
It's probably cheaper to bulldoze them, than deconstruct them and strip for parts ?
 
TarfHead said:
It's probably cheaper to bulldoze them, than deconstruct them and strip for parts ?
Click to expand...

Exactly.
Its horrific waste though. But Im pretty sure it comes down to 'How much to bulldoze' V 'How much to deconstruct then bulldoze'?

Its an opportunity for someone smart to get in there and offer to do deconstructing for free to keep the materials for resale but how much of a market is there for windows/doors/baths/loos etc these days? Not much new stuff being built and not many people with money for home improvements.

Some of the materials used during boomtime might be considered cheap also. They were just banging estates up with bad single glazed single panel front doors etc.. in a lot of cases.
 
Why not offer a salvage company access to the sites first then?
 
I am building a raised vegetable bed in my garden. The cost of a "sleeper" is €25. A length of wood is coming in at about €16 for a 2 x 6 inch 16' length. When I saw the fantastic lengths of roof wood being thrashed was heartbreaking.
There was a programme on TV during the summer about salvagers in the U.K. stripping down buildings for bits and pieces. These were older buildings but they salvaged practically everything.
 

Deconstruction costs are a nightmare to price, assess and regulate. Estimating the work can be tricky at best, any prices usually come heavily laden with contingencies. It's a lot of manual labour that needs suprervision and ultimately insurance and Helath and Safety. Demolition always carries a higher insurance cost. Plenty of material and fitting in those houses are worht something to someone just the cost of getting them out is too high.
If councils did go down this road for environmental reasons (is this an issue here?) then I'd say the high cost would just be a stick to beat them with at the end of that avenue.
 

I think you might be right there. Still, I wouldn't be surprised too see the odd bath tub appearing on DoneDeal
 
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