The Bronx
Attached and semi-attached brick walk-ups on narrow streets, where a party wall is shared with the neighbour and kerb space for a container has to be arranged rather than assumed.
Talk to Breakara about the job
Tell us what is coming out and where it is, and you will get a real answer on the first call. Call (929) 205-1077.
Call, and describe the space
Two minutes on the phone gets you further than any form. Tell us the borough, the type of building and what has to come out, and we will tell you what the job involves, roughly what it costs, and whether it needs a filing before it can start.
We would rather have that conversation before you have committed to a date. The things that move a demolition price are the things nobody writes down: how a truck reaches the building, what the freight elevator allows, and what is behind the wall you want removed.
What to have ready
None of this is required. Each one turns an estimate into a price.
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Where it is
The borough and the type of building. A third-floor co-op and a detached garage are different jobs before anything else is known.
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What is coming out
The rooms or the area, and roughly what is in them. Photographs help far more than measurements, and a short video walking through the space is better than both.
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What is staying
Anything structural, anything being reused, and anything the next trade needs intact. This is the half of the scope that gets forgotten and then argued about.
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How a truck gets near it
Driveway, street, alley, freight elevator, or none of those. If there is a freight elevator, whether the building limits when it can be used.
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Whether anyone has said it needs a filing
An architect, an engineer, a managing agent or the building itself. If somebody has already raised it, that changes the calendar more than anything on site.
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When you need it done
The real date and what it is tied to. We plan around a date driven by a lease or a closing differently from one driven by preference.
What happens next
The call
You describe it, and you are told what is involved, roughly what it costs, and whether it is permitted work. If it is a job for somebody else, you are told that too.
The walk-through
Where it is practical, the space is walked. Access, structure, the building's own rules, and the route the material leaves by.
The price
For the work as described, in writing, with a start date that accounts for any filing. What is included and what is not is written down rather than assumed.
The work
The crew assigned to the job, the sequence agreed, protection in first and out last, and the debris carried to a facility licensed to receive it.
What you will be told on the call
- Whether what you are describing is permitted work, and roughly where that sits in your timeline
- Whether the building you are in is likely to have rules tighter than the city's
- Which method the job really needs, machine, handheld or sawn, and why that changes the number of days
- Roughly how much material it produces and how it will leave the site
If the job needs a permit or a filing before it can start, you are told on the first call rather than after a deposit.
Where Breakara works
Say where the job is and what has to come out, and the rest follows from that.
Queens
Prewar elevator buildings and two-family houses, where most of what comes out leaves through a service door, on hours the building sets rather than the job.
Manhattan
Prewar blocks where the freight elevator and the building hours set the schedule, and where kerb space in front of the door is the scarcest thing on the job.
Brooklyn
Brownstone and brick row houses with high stoops, where the carry route runs down a full flight before it reaches the pavement and the front of the building is the only way in.
Staten Island
Detached frame houses with their own driveways, which is the one part of the city where a machine and a container can usually get close to the work.
Tell us what is coming out, and where it is.
You will get a straight answer on the first call, including whether it needs a filing before it can start.