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Originally Posted by jedikermit
He really is. Thanks for documenting that, T-Mac. Love the B/W pics at the end too.
Hey, does anyone know what upper limit of a building is before they can no longer use wrecking balls/backhoes/construction vehicles that transform into giant robots to tear it down? Like, they have to use explosives? I'm assuming they'll just use the giant robots to take down the only one left standing, but how tall is too tall for them to reach?
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It depends. They don't "claw" a building down above about 65 feet. They can still use a wrecking ball with a tall crane, but it really makes life miserable in the neighborhood, ie. dust, noise, vibration, takes a long time.
There's a break-even point above at about 100 feet. Anything above that, it's cheaper to do a controlled implosion, as long as the contractor is competent.
There are occasional exceptions. The Deutsche Bank Building at 120 West Street in NYC was damaged badly in the 9/11 attacks. They didn't do an implosion because of the fear of traumatizing the neighborhood, bringing up bad memories. It was pricey to take down a 500+ foot building a piece at a time, and dangerous too. They had a crane drop a 22-foot pipe and injure two workers, during "deconstruction", as well as a fire. It took nearly 18 months and was very expensive, compared to an implosion.