Slideshow: Vancouver Home Demolition

Two houses are levelled every day in Vancouver.
Vancouver Home Demolition

Using an excavator, Cameron Turtle reduces a 4,800-square-foot Kerrisdale home to rubble in 90 minutes.
Vancouver Home Demolition

Ninety per cent of the debris from a house demolition ends up in a landfill.
Vancouver Home Demolition

In this case, nearly all of the house including window frames, outdated kitchen appliances, and hardwood flooring planks is discarded.
Vancouver Home Demolition

While it costs only between $40 and $60 a tonne to recycle wood at a local transfer station, dumping the wood with mixed construction materials in the landfill costs $97 a tonne.
Vancouver Home Demolition

Vancouver is out of space, so subdivision is often the reason older houses on large lots like this one meet their mechanized maker.
Vancouver Home Demolition

Recycling and salvaging materials – mostly wood – can add about $1,000 to a $250,000 renovation job.
Vancouver Home Demolition

The extra labour involved in salvaging materials deters most homeowners from recycling.
Vancouver Home Demolition

Salvageable materials get crunched up with the rest of the building.
Vancouver Home Demolition

With the old house gone, two new houses will be built, using a lot of new wood.
Vancouver Home Demolition

 

Back to the feature: “Disposable Housing: Vancouver Home Demolition,” by Colleen Kimmett

Plus: Video of backhoe razing a Vancouver home. Set to music