Taking Down Sheds, Garages, Carports and Patios

The structure everyone forgets to quote

Very few Perth blocks hold only a house. There is a garage, a carport, a colorbond shed at the back, a patio that was added in the 1990s, a pergola, sometimes a workshop with its own power. When a block is being cleared for a knockdown rebuild or a subdivision, all of it has to go — and it is routinely left out of the first budget.

The work covers Colorbond and steel-frame sheds, brick and limestone garages, single and double carports, patios and pergolas, workshops, aviaries, dog runs, and the pool equipment shed that outlasted the pool.

Perth's outbuildings are their own category

Two things make Perth different. The first is limestone. Older garages and boundary structures in the coastal and western suburbs — around Fremantle, Cottesloe and behind Scarborough — were built from quarried Tamala limestone block. It is heavy, dense and slow to break out, it generates far more waste weight per square metre than brick, and limestone garden and retaining walls are frequently holding soil rather than just marking a line. Those get assessed before anything is touched.

The second is asbestos. The corrugated grey sheeting on a great many Perth carports and garden sheds is asbestos cement, as are the fencing panels that usually run beside them. That makes the shed a licensed asbestos removal job before it becomes a demolition job.

Scope decisions worth making early

The slab. Keeping it saves money if a replacement structure is going in the same footprint at the same size. Removing it is necessary for subdivision, for building over, or if it has heaved or cracked. Say which you want before the quote so it is priced once.

The footings. Shed footings and pad footings are usually shallow, but a workshop or a double garage can have substantial ones. They come out with the slab if the slab goes.

The services. Power to a shed or workshop must be isolated by a licensed electrician before demolition. Water lines to a garden tap or a laundry in the garage get capped. A sub-board in a workshop is not something to cut through and find out.

The boundary. Structures built to the fence line come down by dismantling, not by pushing. Where a shed wall is also a retaining wall or a shared boundary wall, that is a conversation with the neighbour, in advance, not a surprise.

What is left behind

Once the structure is gone, what remains is a rectangle of compacted ground, a slab footprint if the slab stayed, and whatever was hidden behind and under the shed for twenty years. Most jobs roll straight into site clearing to deal with the vegetation and rubbish, and concrete removal for the driveway strip that fed the garage.

Where the shed comes out as part of a bigger job, it is scheduled with the house demolition so one set of machines and trucks covers everything. Where the shed is the whole job, it is typically a one to two day visit. General waste from the clean-out runs through rubbish removal, and bare ground afterwards is usually covered with bulk mulch or turf.

Pricing factors sit in the demolition cost guide. Call (08) 9516 0951 with the shed's approximate size, what it is built from and whether the slab is staying.