A video that would make Fred Dibnah truly proud.
For all the talk of high reach excavators, robot demolition machines and advanced dust, vibration and noise monitoring systems, it is nice to know that there’s still room in the modern demolition world for something a little more “old school” in nature.
Earlier today, fledgling UK demolition contractor Hardcore Crushing Ltd turned the clock back and embraced the spirit of Fred Dibnah with the felling of a 1915-built chimney at Barnoldswick in Lancashire.
The owner of the chimney – John D Clark – was given the job of lighting the fire that started the felling process to mark the latest stage in a £275,000 contract that started back in July.
Hardcore Crushing Ltd reports that the fire used in the demolition wasn’t the first on the site. ”We suffered an arson attack one evening during August which burnt out a large heating oil tank with around 3,000 litres of heavy heating oil still intact, and which we feel was designed to cause maximum environmental damage,” says Hardcore Crushing’s John Taylor. “Fortunately we were on site immediately and had all the oil and fire damage cleaned up and remediated without delay, and in doing so gained huge praise from the Environment Agency who were so impressed with our actions that they were considering doing a local news article into the event, in order to show how a text book clean-up operation should be carried out.”
While the method used to drop the chimney was very much old school, Hardcore Crushing is mindful of the environmental demands of today. Around 99% of all materials are being recycled including glass, scrap metals, stone, flag floors, stone masonry, and all remaining masonry and concrete will be crushed to produce recycled aggregates to go back into the construction industry.
