Demolishing a house isn’t just about removing the roof and not tearing a few walls down. Although it’s usually a straightforward process completed quickly enough, it can soon become a weighty bag of issues if not planned correctly.

Many tasks have to be done, and if they are not done correctly, they will cause delays, holdups, or even issues with neighbours, which can turn your dream home or redevelopment into a living nightmare, so every step must be done right.

As experts in the field, Dingo Contract Services ensures that these are addressed and completed. However, if you are starting and need a free house demolition guide, we’re here to help.

We’ve put together an easy and helpful step-by-step informative guide: take what you want from it and use it as much or as little as you need.  

What is Residential Demolition?

Residential house demolition involves the controlled removal of a house or other residential building, ensuring the process is carried out safely and in line with relevant regulations.

Following preset guidance and guide as a minimum, residential demolition encompasses everything from partial demolition work, targeted and specific works, soft strip works, through to complete removal of a building and clearing and cleaning of the site, depending on the project’s needs.

Types of Residential Demolition:

• Complete House Demolition: This involves completely tearing down a residential building, leaving the land clear and ready for redevelopment or future use.
• Partial House Demolition: This refers to the selective removal of certain parts of a home—such as a room, extension, or wall—while retaining the remaining structure.
• Targeted demolition or soft strip work: Soft strip work involves taking out all or specific non-structural items, including partition walls, bathrooms, kitchens, concrete floors and the like.
• Deconstruction: A more time-consuming but certainly a very viable sustainable approach involves careful dismantling of a building in an attempt to salvage and reclaim all and every reusable item and material from within a building, such as roof tiles, timber, bricks, doors and windows and fixtures for reuse or resale, this vastly reduces the impact on landfill, and while it’s one of our preferred options we understand that not every site is suitable, nor viable for this, we see firsthand the history of yesterday’s buildings being thrown away and we love salvaging these architectural antiques wherever we can.  This approach to demolition vastly reduces the waste generated and can improve outcomes.

Planning Your House Demolition

As with anything we do, planning and cost control generally helps you avoid unnecessary headaches. Planning your house demolition will help you and assist you in the steps to be followed, keeping everyone together when things get hectic and silly busy.

The Site Description

You should be as detailed as possible; drawings, diagrams, and photos will help everyone. Include a plan and any nearby structures with photos and sizes. Things like this will help you overcome any misunderstandings you may encounter.

Scope of Work

It does not matter whether it’s a partial demolition, a soft strip out for refurbishment, or complete house demolition; you must be quite clear about the scope of work you want priced. Make your final decisions on precisely what you want to be done and completed, and at this point, stick to it. Be precise about any changes you make and keep them written down and recorded.

Evaluating Contractors

Prepare yourself with a big cup of patience early in the morning, walk all of your shortlisted contractors through the project, tell them your plans and perception of how things will happen, talk to them and ensure they fully understand what your end goal is and how you would like it to happen, they will tell you if it cannot happen a particular way, and they will explain why, this way everyone is on the same page working towards a common end goal. You will or should get clear quotes for what you discussed.

Determining a Timeline

Once you have a clear picture and idea of what needs to be done and how you want it completed, you can now agree on a timeline for your contractors.

You should consider any obstacles, including council restrictions, permits, utility isolation delays, potential drawbacks, and ultimately, the demolition contractor’s timeframe to complete the works; with the best will in the world, have a contingency here, remember, mechanical things break down when you least want them too, people get sick, other supporting contractors encounter delays, and things happen… be prepared to hit a delay or two during the works, have a small contingency if needed, this will reduce your stress levels for sure.

Safety and Risk Concerns in Residential Demolition

Residential demolition carries with it inherent risks, but these can be easily managed with proper attention to them at the planning stage

• Asbestos and Hazardous Materials: Homes constructed before 1985 may contain asbestos, lead, or other hazardous substances that qualified professionals must identify and safely manage.
• Pre-demolition inspections/assessment (Now a WorkSafe requirement): Dingo Demo work closely with our competent support partners, which may include IQ Assured, whom we regularly use as our experts in the field of pre-demo surveys; we find them to be the most competent, reliable, and with fast turnaround on reporting times which is exactly what we need for our clients.  
• Structural Instability: utmost care must be taken when dealing with fire-damaged, weak or dilapidated structures that pose a heightened safety risk during demolition and must be assessed correctly.
• Utility Hazards: Electricity, gas, and water services must be properly disconnected to prevent accidents during demolition.
• Non-Hazardous Material Debris Management: Poorly managed debris or general waste can create hazards for workers, neighbours, and the surrounding area if not managed correctly.
• Environmental Impact protection: correct and proper waste disposal is essential to any project. Improper or illegal waste disposal can harm the environment in many ways, and the cost of illegal dumping burdens everyone.

Choosing a Residential House Demolition Contractor

OK, so you’re just about ready to go… while demolition companies and contractors mainly complete house demolition,  it is possible to go it alone and DIY, but as the song says, it’s lonely out in space… if things go sour, contractors are much less likely to walk in and help out, you also don’t want to find yourself the wrong side of legislation or have WorkSafe on your case, which is why many people turn to contractors, who have the right equipment, insurance cover, training and expertise to do the works safely and give you a stress-free service.

1. Look for Experience and Competencies

Ensure that the contractor you’re considering undertaking the work for you is experienced, insured, and competent and has the credentials and expertise to safely, legally, and fully complete residential demolitions. They should also have a proven track record in successfully managing similar projects.

2. Listening to Others

Your next step is to create a shortlist of demolition contractors. Whether it’s word of mouth or legitimate online reviews, if you want to satisfy yourself, you have engaged a professional team that is honest and friendly but also reliable and experienced.

3. Comparing Quotes and Prices

It’s not just a case of getting a few quotes from here and there and then seeing who’s the cheapest; you need to look for accurate quotes, fixed lump sum, or ones with as little risk for variations as possible. Beware that some companies “lowball” costs and rely on variation claims to build their costs back up. This is where your planning and assessment of companies will pay dividends if you have a clearly written scope of work and one that includes some potential hazards. Remember that not all asbestos or hazards may have been identified even after completing the pre-demolition survey. Remember, houses built before the 1990s are most likely to have asbestos, which can play a significant role in the pricing as well, and quite often, asbestos is found under the slab, which would be a latent find claim and variation by almost every contractor.

4. VFM- Value for Money

If you go for the lowest quote, expect to end up paying more. Each contractor can offer the following options:

Good, – Cheap, – Fast, but going for this option, you can only pick two (at most and often end up with only one option). Going for the lowest quote rarely pays off.

5. Highlight your Project Details

Communicate the specifics of your project with contractors to help them provide accurate timeframes and quotes. Set clear expectations from the outset and maintain open communication throughout the process to keep the job on track.

6. Ensure Safety and Clear Communication

As best practice, we suggest choosing a contractor who prioritises safety and follows relevant regulations (this will keep you on the right side of litigation and away from liability). Consistent and clear communication is fundamental in handling any issues during the residential demolition process, and you want a contractor who keeps you informed at every stage of the process right through to completion.

7. Signing Contracts

Ensure you’re happy with the terms and conditions of a contract; these should be basic terms for residential demolition works; question things if you do not understand anything; once you’ve reached an agreement and the contracts are signed, you have both entered a legally binding contract.

Pre-Demolition Inspection

What should the pre-demo survey/inspection include? Let’s discuss this below.

Hazardous Materials

It’s crucially important to check for and identify all potentially hazardous materials before work starts because this is a must to get permits and notifications in place before work starts; it will also affect how you go about working on the site in safety and being compliant, the inspections should include inspections for asbestos, lead, mould, and rotted wood.

Recently, in Western Australia, there have been restrictions on the movement of soil due to fire ants being found and wood movements due to European wood borer being identified and the discovery of PFAS chemicals. Note that things such as these will, without doubt, affect your demolition timeline and, ultimately, pricing.

Construction Materials

To have the best view of the overall picture, both parties should know and understand a few things, not only the construction method used on the original building but also the materials used, and possibly those used in surrounding or neighbouring properties, as the demolition works may impact neighbours, you need to look at roof stability, any potential unsafe parts of the structure (especially if there have been termites, or if the building has been affected by either fire, flood or storm damage, or anything else that could affect the process or have caused a potential weakness of the structure, such as ground movement be it by landslide or by pressure caused by retaining walls.

Location, Access and Planned Waste Removal

Part of the Demolition assessment will, without doubt, need to look at the positioning and location of the House in relation to where it sits on the lot. The reason for this is to ascertain the accessibility of the site. You need to know if machinery can safely access and work around the structures you want demolished or to ensure items you don’t want to be damaged or retained are worked around without issue, e.g. trees, standalone buildings, etc.

The contractors must also look at waste removal, loading out routes or skips, truck placement, and movement. Not to be overlooked is also the suitability of the existing ground. Will it take the load? Can trucks or machinery be moved over it safely? It is not uncommon for sites to bring crushed materials to the site for either laydown areas or temporary driveways to get machinery and plant onto the site and allow safe movement of waste, skips or trucks off-site.

Permits

You cannot start any work before getting the necessary permits and submitting necessary notifications to WorkSafe of your intention to start work on a given day; there are mandatory minimum notice periods for this, although in extreme cases, a waiver may be applied for, (but this is not the norm and will not be granted without good cause).

Demolition permits and Notifications to WorkSafe are usually completed and submitted by the demolition contractor (while it would be recommended that you are included in all these submissions and keep track of them).

There are differences from shire to shire; some shires also require to be notified that some shires will want and expect to be paid certain bonds (e.g. a common one is a Kerb bond); in the end, it is the same or similar paperwork; but ultimately, you’ll need the below items to be granted the permit:

• All relevant Site plans and information
• Evidence of notifications (to the applicant, utility providers if applicable, and notifications required by Safety and Health regulations) It is essential to know that all utility service bills must be paid in full. In some instances, a particular service may need to have the account closed and terminated.
• Evidence of pre-demolition site inspection (completed asbestos/hazardous materials survey) and rat baiting certificates is needed before work starts or permits are granted.
• Contractor details.
• Consent forms, court orders 
• Development approvals or planning approvals

If you’re applying for a permit, it’s worth researching and contacting the local council or relevant planning departments. Ensure you understand who is responsible for issuing the permit, the specific requirements, and the expected processing time. Because permit rules vary between locations, speaking with your contractor or council helps ensure you’re compliant and avoids unnecessary delays.

What to do about existing Utilities

In most instances of demolition, you must decommission, isolate or terminate existing onsite utilities. No demolition work can take place before entirely shutting off utilities.

Existing utilities include disconnecting the electricity, water, gas, sewerage connection, and telecommunications links. This also ensures that valuable resources are not wasted, or clean water supplies are not contaminated, and it also reduces potential damages, which could be exceptionally costly.

**All terminations should be completed by a competent, licensed, insured and authorised professional only

Salvage / Recycling

In most incidences, the demolition contractor will claim all salvage and recycling rights to all and any materials on site or within a building; they will have already made allowances for these materials’ values within their quotes; if, however, there are items that you want to be retained or saved these must be discussed with your contractor early, as this may have a bearing in their final costs. If you see a value in something on site, you can bet your bottom dollar that an experienced demolition contractor has already seen it, valued it, and often already has a buyer lined up for it, so if you want it, now is the time to mention it.

There are usually small but viable architectural antiques or items in salvage. Still, you need to know the market, and often, a demolition company will already have an outlet for people wanting doors and windows, woodwork, and other types of recyclable building materials.

You want to consider deconstructing parts of your house where items of value can be extracted instead of going straight for complete home demolition but be careful as demolition contractors know what they are doing, where specific items can be sold, and how to safely take it from a building, trying to save a few dollars may end up costing you as well.

Consider creating a checklist, a wish list of what you’d like to salvage first; talk to your constructor about it to see if it’s viable and safe to remove it yourself or ask the demolition contractor to remove it and save it for you.

Deconstruction Methods

When the time arrives to demolish the house, and if you wish to record or watch it come down, do it from a safe place and behind the site barriers and safety fencing; always be aware of safety and the various demolition methods you can use.

Hand Demolition

Hand Demolition will still involve a range of demolition tools, which will include heavy hammers, concrete breakers, and cutting equipment for sure; this option is usually used either for small-scale jobs or intricate jobs, where restricted access may restrict other options being employed or where other building being close by restrict other machinery being used or if delicate items that are being salvaged require more finesse in their removal this type of demolition will often come with an at extended timeline.

If parts of your home have valuable materials you want to save, reclaim, recycle, or salvage, going for hand demolition may be an option for you to consider, as well as any mechanical demolition.

Mechanical Demolition

Mechanical/machine demolition is the most used residential demolition method; it is undoubtedly faster and cheaper than hand work. Often, the downside of this means there is little left for salvaging.

Due to its nature, mechanical demolition is quicker, easier, and simpler to estimate, considering timeframes and pricing.

Waste material removal from Residential Demolition

You will not generally need these materials or have any further use for reuse or recycling. That does not mean someone else will not; often, waste removed from the site will go through a sorting or screening process by the waste receivers (a good thing). They screen materials, such as old insulation, gyprock, bricks, glass, etc., before they go to landfills as they once did.

Some demolition contractors own or rent equipment to reduce the number of materials going off-site, such as screeners or crushers and produce a secondary usable and valuable material, leaving the minimal amount of material going to waste receivers for screening and processing; remember that all and any amount of landfill reduction is a positive thing for all of us. 

After the residential demolition, the site must be cleared of all debris. This is usually handled by the contractor, including safely removing hazardous materials like asbestos and sorting any recyclable waste.

It’s essential to agree in advance on how the site should be maintained—both during the works and once demolition is complete. We recommend keeping the area tidy, discreet and well-organised to minimise disruption to you and your neighbours. Before wrapping up the project, confirm that the site is safe, clean, and ready for the next stage of construction.

How Much Does House Demolition Cost in Western Australia?

House demolition costs in Western Australia generally range from $15,000 to $40,000, but the final price can vary depending on several key factors. No two demolition jobs are the same, and pricing will reflect the specific needs of your property and the complexity of the project.

Some of the main factors that affect cost include:

• Property Size and Structure: Larger homes or multi-level buildings typically require more labour, equipment, and time, which increases costs. Likewise, brick or double-brick homes may cost more to demolish than timber-framed ones.
• Location and Site Access: Properties in tight or built-up areas may present access challenges for machinery, which can impact timeframes and increase labour costs. Regional or remote locations may also involve additional transport charges.
• Asbestos and Hazardous Materials: If asbestos is present, specialised handling and disposal are required. This adds to the overall cost but is necessary for health and legal compliance.
• Site Conditions: Sloping blocks, retaining walls, underground tanks, or difficult terrain can complicate the demolition process and lead to additional expenses.
• Service Disconnections and Permits: Disconnection of utilities (power, water, gas, NBN) and council permits will also form part of the overall cost and should be accounted for early on.
• Salvage and Waste Removal: If you wish to keep certain materials or fixtures, or if significant recycling is involved, this can affect both cost and process.

Final Thoughts

We understand that any house demolition project can also be very stressful, and it’s essential to make detailed plans and keep them as close to them as possible.

Dealing with a reliable, reputable, and capable demolition contractor can take a load off your mind; your part in this is to be straightforward, lay out your expectations early on and agree on them with your contractor; remember you need the work completed, they do this all day every day, and they want to complete your work, there is common ground to be found by both parties.

Staying informed and engaged throughout the process is essential—just be mindful not to overstep. Remember, experienced demolition contractors know what’s required and expected. The best operators will keep you updated with clear communication at every stage. Don’t hesitate to ask questions, request details, and expect the same level of commitment in return.

If you’re unsure about anything or need clarification, feel free to get in touch. We’re here to support you and help ensure your residential demolition project runs smoothly and with confidence.