How Much Does Home Demolition Cost?
Demolishing a house is a very large job that can seem very overwhelming. However, sometimes it is necessary, and it's often the easiest for homeowners to get working on building their dream home.
Demolition does not usually imply demolishing the entire structure. Sometimes all that is required is the removal of a portion of the house to make way for something new, such as an expansion or conversion.
Demolition doesn’t always involve getting rid of the entire house altogether. Sometimes you may just need to remove a certain part of the house to make room for something new such as an extension or a conversion.
House demolition costs will vary on the house to house basis, depending on the project at hand. This is because many factors will affect the overall costs, such as the size of your home, your location in the UK, and the materials that your home is made up of.
Each of these elements will impact the final cost of your house demolition.
So, what is the cost of demolishing a home in the UK?
If you want to demolish a small property of around 80-120 square metres, this will cost around £5600-£12,000. The demolition of a medium-sized property of around 150-200 square metres will usually cost around £10,600-£17,000.
If your house is quite large at around 200-250 square metres, the demolition will cost around £15,600-£22,000.
This type of project will be quite large and will usually take around four to eight days to complete safely. Any surrounding properties may also need to have some necessary supports put in place. Plus, the removal of all of the demolished materials can be quite lengthy.
House Demolition Prices
Below is a table showing the average cost of various house demolition jobs:
| Size of Property | Average Demolition Costs |
|---|---|
| Small house demolition (80-120 square metres) | £5600-£12,000 |
| Medium house demolition (150-200 square metres) | £10,600-£17,000 |
| Large house demolition (200-250 square metres) | £15,600-£22,000 |
What are the Supply Costs for a House Demolition?
If you are considering demolishing a house, you may be interested in learning the supply costs alone without the cost of labour.
This is for the cost of just the supplies alone and without incorporating any costs of hiring the contractors to carry out the work for you.
When it comes to demolishing your house, you won’t need to worry about any supply costs. This is unless you are removing your old house to replace it with a newly built house. Most people will choose to demolish their house if they want to build their dream home in its place.
If you remove your old house and replace it with a new house, you can expect to pay around £50,000-£200,000 for a new house build. The overall cost for a new house build will vary depending on the size of the property, the type of property and the materials that the new house is built with.
Your location will also play a factor in the overall costs. Those based in the London area can expect to pay more for a new home build than those based in the North or other parts of the UK.
What are the Additional Costs of Demolishing a House?
When it comes to demolishing a home, there are several additional costs that you may need to consider with this type of work. Demolishing a property can be quite a large job and will usually require you to build another house in its place or a different position on your property.
In addition to the price of the new home build and the demolition costs, here are some of the additional things that you may need to budget for with this type of work:
Install a Fence
When you demolish your house, you’ll most likely be building a new house in its place. In addition to the new home, there are some other things that you may need to buy for your property space, including a garden fence.
Garden fencing can help provide your home with some additional privacy and security. A new garden fence can also help improve the overall look and the kerb appeal of your property.
The average cost to install a new fence is around £550-£1500, depending on the size of the fence, your location in the UK and the materials used.
Garden Wall Installation
If a garden fence isn’t the right choice for your particular outdoor space, you may want to consider installing a garden wall instead.
A garden wall can also help improve the appearance of your outdoor space overall, and it can also provide you with some additional privacy and security. The overall cost of installing a garden wall will depend on the location of your property, the materials used, and the length and height of the wall.
You can usually expect to pay around £450-£1200 to install a new garden wall on your property.
Gardening Work
When you have your house demolished, you might want to do some gardening work to help improve the appearance of your outdoor space. Demolishing a house can create a lot of mess, and this might have an effect on the appearance of your garden.
Gardening work can include many different things such as mowing, planting new plants and flowers, trimming, landscaping, watering plants, turfing, or just some general garden tidying.
A gardener will often charge an hourly rate or a daily rate. You can usually expect to pay a gardener around £100-£180 per day or £10-£30 per hour for gardening work.
Waste Removal
When it comes to demolishing a house, most contractors will include the cost of waste removal within the total cost of the job. However, in some cases, the contractor may not provide the waste removal for you, so this may be an additional cost that you need to budget for.
If you need to hire a professional company to remove all of the demolition waste for you, you can expect to pay around £15-£300. This will depend on the amount of demolition waste that needs to be removed.
Alternatively, hiring a skip for waste removal may be more beneficial. This will usually cost around £400-£800, depending on the size of the skip needed, your location within the UK and the duration of the skip hire.
Tradesmen Costs for Home Demolition
If you are considering demolishing your house, you may be interested in finding out more about the labour costs for this type of work. The labour costs will usually make up most of the total cost for a house demolition.
In this section, we will go over what you can expect to pay for the labour portion of this type of work.
The labour costs for a house demolition will usually be around £100-£200 per person, per day. The actual price you pay will usually depend on their skill level and their experience in demolishing houses.
This type of job will usually be completed by a team of at least three contractors. Since the work generally takes around four to eight days on average to complete, this means you can expect the total labour costs to fall anywhere between £1200-£8000 in total.
In some cases, the work may take longer than average to complete. This is usually the case if the contractors stumble across issues that may make the demolition process more difficult.
Also, if the ease of access to the property is restricted, this could also add some additional time to the length of the job.
If you live in the London area, you can expect the labour costs to be higher in this area. This is due to the fact that labour costs in London are generally more across the board in comparison to the labour costs in the North or other areas of the UK.
How Long Does It Take to Demolish a House?
If you are planning on demolishing your house, you may be interested in learning more about the length of time this type of job might take.
Demolishing a house is not a simple job and requires a lot of work, so you can expect the timescales to be quite substantial. In this section, we will go over the various timescales that you can expect when it comes to demolishing a house.
If you are demolishing a small house, you can expect this to take around 3-5 days to complete. If your home is medium-sized, this will usually take around 4-8 days to complete. If your house is large, you can usually expect the demolition to take around 6-12 days to complete.
The timescales given above are based on a demolition job where no issues arise. As with a lot of other large jobs, there are some issues that may become a problem during the process of the demolition, and these may add some additional time to the length of the job.
It’s important to keep in mind that the longer the job takes to complete, the more you will have to pay for the work.
Types of Home Demolition
There are several different types of demolition. In this section, we will take a look at the different types of demolition and what each type involves.
Total Demolition
A total demolition is the demolition of the entire house. This is most commonly the case if you plan to rebuild your home in a new location or rebuild your dream home.
This type of demolition will get rid of every aspect of the home, including the roof, the walls, the foundations, and every other aspect of the house.
Selective Demolition
Selective destruction involves removing certain parts of the building but not the whole building. Some old buildings may need to have certain parts of it demolished.
If you live in a listed building, there may be some restrictions on which parts of the house can be demolished, so a selective demolition would be the best option in this case.
In certain cases, you may need to remove parts of the home, such as an external wall, to make room for something new like an extension.
Interior Demolition
An interior demolition would involve demolishing certain interior parts of the inside of the property. During this type of demolition, the other parts of the building will be protected so that the structure is maintained.
Interior demolition may involve removing a wall, a partition, or a ceiling. This is great for creating an open-plan living area or for creating more space within the house.
Dismantling or Deconstruction
When this type of work is carried out, it involves dismantling or deconstructing parts of the building to preserve some of the parts for reuse, refurbishment, or recycling.
This type of demolition is a lot more labour intensive and will usually result in much higher labour costs. The work will usually often take much longer than other types of demolition.
Explosive Demolition
An explosive demolition is a very specialised type of demolition. This type of demolition uses explosives to bring down high-rise building structures.
With this in mind, this type of demolition is more common in flat or apartment buildings rather than in house demolitions.
The explosion is planned out perfectly to target the structural support system so that the building collapses in on itself.
FAQs
Q: Do you need permission to demolish a home?
A: You won’t usually need to worry about planning permission when it comes to demolishing a house. Demolition work is usually considered as permitted development. This means that it doesn’t normally require any type of planning permission.
However, it’s worth noting that your permitted development rights might be removed or restricted in some cases. This is usually the case if you reside in a conservation area or a listed building.
It’s always worth checking with your local authority if you’re ever in doubt about whether or not you need planning permission.
Q: Is it worth demolishing a house and rebuilding it?
A: When it comes to deciding whether or not you should renovate or demolish your house and then rebuild, it’s worth adding up the costs of each of the projects and seeing which is best for your budget. You may also want to speak to an architect to go over your options.
Demolishing your house and rebuilding it means that you can build the home of your dreams which you may not be able to achieve with a simple renovation.
If you’re desperate to achieve your dream house to your exact specifications, demolishing and rebuilding would be the only real option.
However, it's worth considering the sheer size of this type of project and whether it is worth it for you personally.
Q: Can I demolish my house myself?
A: In some cases, you may be able to. However, you should contact your local authority for some advice as they have specific rules, regulations, and health and safety requirements that you need to be aware of before you can do this job.
Demolishing a house yourself may seem like the best option if you want to save on labour costs. However, if you make any mistakes along the way, it could be costly in terms of money and safety.
There may be some smaller parts of the job that you can tackle yourself, such as demolishing a wall, to help keep the costs down.
Q: How much is planning permission for demolishing a house?
A: If you contact your local council about your house demolition project and find out that you need to apply for planning permission, you will need to apply for this before starting the work.
If that is the case, you may be wondering how much it will cost to apply for planning permission for your project. The cost for a planning application in the UK is £462.
Q: How will a contractor work out the demolition costs?
A: In most cases, the demolition specialists will calculate the overall costs of a demolition project based on the size of the floor area of the space that needs to be demolished.
With this in mind, it would be a good idea to calculate the floor area of your house in square metres. That way, you can provide your house measurements to various demolition companies so that you can obtain a few different quotes for the work and compare the costs.
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