Sectional concrete garages went up across this area in enormous numbers from the nineteen fifties onwards, and a great many of them are now well past the point of being worth keeping. Taking one down is a manageable weekend job for anyone reasonably capable. Garage demolition waste, though, arrives in three quite different forms, and treating them as one load is what makes the job cost more than it should. Our Aintree skip hire service handles a steady run of these.
Check the roof before you touch anything
This comes first every time. A large proportion of sectional garages of that era were roofed in corrugated cement sheeting, and if the garage predates the mid nineteen nineties there is a real chance that sheeting contains asbestos.
You cannot identify it by looking at it. It is grey, corrugated and fibrous, and safe sheeting from later years looks broadly the same. If there is any doubt at all, get it tested before a tool goes near it, because breaking it is what creates the hazard.
We cannot take it in a skip under any circumstances. It needs a licensed contractor and separate disposal, and our guide to hazardous waste and why it cannot go in a skip sets out what to do. Getting the roof dealt with properly before you start on the rest is the sensible sequence, and it means the demolition itself is then simple.
The first stream is the contents
Nobody demolishes an empty garage. Whatever has accumulated in there over thirty years comes out first, and in most cases that is a substantial load in its own right. Garden tools, tins, offcuts, a lawnmower that stopped working during a previous decade, boxes.
Two things need pulling out rather than skipping. Liquid paint and chemicals are not skip waste and need taking to a household waste site that takes them. Gas bottles cannot go in either, full or empty. If there is an old fridge or freezer in there, tell us when you book, because those need separate handling for the coolant rather than going in with the rest.
For the clearance stage on its own, a 4 tonne midi skip covers most single garages.
The second stream is the structure
Once the roof is off and the building is empty, a sectional garage comes apart in the order it went up. The panels are bolted together, and where the bolts have rusted solid they will need cutting rather than turning.
The panels themselves are the surprise. Precast concrete sections are far heavier than they look, and they are awkward rather than simply heavy, which is worse. This is not a one person job. Two people per panel, and take the walls down in a sensible order so the structure does not become unstable while you are still inside it.
The up and over door is worth separating out. It is steel, it has a scrap value, and it takes up a ridiculous amount of room in a skip if it goes in whole.
The third stream is the base
This is the heaviest part and the one most often forgotten at the booking stage. If the concrete base is coming up as well as the building, you have gone from a moderate job to a serious one in terms of weight.
A garage base is usually a reinforced slab, and the reinforcement matters because it means the slab will not simply break into manageable lumps. It has to be cut or broken and then the mesh dealt with. Broken concrete is about the densest material we handle, and a slab of that size will fill the weight allowance of a large skip while barely covering the floor of it.
Keep the concrete separate from everything else. Clean broken concrete crushes down and goes back out as usable material, and our environmental and recycling page explains what happens to it at our end. Mixed with the contents of the garage, it is just waste. For the structure and base together, an 8 tonne builders skip is what we would put in.
Sequencing the skips
The pattern that works is a clearance skip first, taken away once the garage is empty, then a second container for the demolition itself. It sounds like more cost and usually is not, because each one is sized for what it actually has to carry rather than for a compromise between two very different loads.
If you are laying something new on the footprint afterwards, that is a third consideration again, and if you need material bringing in we can deliver top soil on the same run rather than as a separate trip.
One practical point on timing. Do not book the demolition skip until the roof question is settled, because if testing comes back positive you will have a container sitting on your drive doing nothing while a licensed contractor is arranged. Deal with the roof, then clear the contents, then take the structure down. Working in that order means each skip arrives when there is something to put in it.
Access and permits
Most garages here sit on a drive, which usually means the skip can sit on the same drive and no permit is needed. Where it has to go on the road, Aintree falls under Sefton for permitting purposes at £36 per month, and our guide to skip permits in Southport covers the process.
Ring us on 0151 909 6399 and tell us whether the base is coming up, because that single detail changes the answer more than anything else. Our contact page is there if you would rather send a photograph of the garage first.
