Independence Demolition Pros: How Long a House Demolition Takes in Independence

The timeline, step by step

Here is the sequence the crews we work with run inside the city, with the time each step usually takes when nothing goes wrong.

1. Day 1: walk-through and written price. One visit; the price follows in a day or two.
2. Days 1 to 3: contract signed, City permit submittal filed with the site plan and the insurance certificate, asbestos inspector booked.
3. Days 3 to 10: inspector samples the house; lab results take several days to two weeks depending on the lab and the turnaround paid for.
4. Day 10 onward: Notification of Demolition filed with the Department of Natural Resources; the clock is ten working days, two calendar weeks, before demolition may begin.
5. Same window: the City pulls the water and electric meters, Spire kills the gas, Municipal Services schedules the sewer kill; erosion control goes in and Public Works inspects it with the sewer kill.
6. Permit issues once every utility has verified; with the notice period run, the excavator is scheduled.
7. Teardown: one to three days for a house; the basement broken, filled in lifts and compacted over one to three more.
8. Final inspection, with the landfill tickets if abatement was involved; the lot graded and seeded.

The step that sets the date

On most Independence jobs the critical path runs through the asbestos process: a week or two for the lab, then ten working days of notice. The City permit usually issues inside that window, because the meter pulls are automatic once the application is in and Municipal Services schedules sewer kills steadily. So the single most useful thing an owner can do is have the inspection ordered the day the decision is made. The asbestos inspection page explains what the inspector samples and what a positive result does: it adds an abatement contractor with its own ten-working-day project notification, which is the usual way a four-week schedule becomes six.

What else adds time

The historic review can. Every Independence application is screened by Historic Preservation staff, and a property on the older streets found significant goes to the Heritage Commission, which meets on its own schedule. A fire-damaged or storm-damaged house waits on the insurer's written release before the clock even starts. A septic tank, a well or a buried fuel tank each adds a closure step with its own paperwork. Outside the city, the suburbs add their own: Lee's Summit wants the water and sanitary abandonment finished under a right-of-way permit before it will issue the demolition permit, and gives the permit 60 days; Liberty wants a utility verification letter from every provider and gives 30. Winter adds little, since frozen ground is good ground for an excavator, but a wet spring slows the fill and the grading.

• Positive asbestos result: abatement plus a second ten-working-day notice, one to two weeks
• Heritage Commission review on a significant property: weeks, by meeting schedule
• Insurer's release on a fire or storm loss: days to weeks before anything starts
• Septic, well or tank closure: each its own step
• Suburban right-of-way and abandonment permits: ahead of the demolition permit

Demolition day itself

A one-story house with a basement is usually down by the end of the first day and loaded out by the end of the second; a two-story house or a tight lot off an alley takes a third. The foundation comes out or gets broken below grade the next day, and the fill goes in over one to three days depending on the volume: a 1,000 square foot basement seven feet deep is about 260 cubic yards, roughly 20 to 25 truckloads, each placed and compacted in lifts. The lot is graded to drain and seeded last. The what to expect on demolition day guide covers those days hour by hour, and the house demolition page covers the job as a whole.

A realistic calendar

Clean inspection, no historic issue, inside Independence: about four weeks from the signed contract to the excavator, then a week on site. Positive asbestos result: six weeks. A house in Lee's Summit with the abandonment permit run first: five to six weeks. A fire loss waiting on an adjuster: whatever the adjuster takes, plus four. Owners holding a dangerous-building notice should read the City's period against that calendar on the day the notice arrives, and tell the City a demolition is under way, which usually keeps the two on one schedule. The state's notification forms and timing are published at dnr.mo.gov.

Primary sources: the Missouri Department of Natural Resources notification forms and timing at dnr.mo.gov, the City of Independence checklist at independencemo.gov, the City of Liberty demolition bulletin at libertymissouri.gov, and Kansas City's permit bulletins at kcmo.gov.