Service 02
Interior & Exterior Demolition
Interior demolition is taking a building back to the bones you intend to keep — partitions, ceilings, finishes, MEP and floors out, structure and envelope left sound. In an occupied Boston building the hard part is rarely the removal. It is doing it without closing the business downstairs, tripping a smoke detector on a shared system, or discovering something behind a wall that stops the job for a week.
What the job covers
- Partition, ceiling, millwork and finish removal down to structure
- Mechanical, electrical and plumbing strip-out back to capped points
- Exterior work — facades, storefronts, canopies, loading docks, fire escapes and additions
- Temporary protection: dust barriers, negative air, floor and elevator protection, egress maintained
- Careful removal where fixtures, brick, timber or equipment are being salvaged
- Debris chuted or carried out, loaded and hauled
- Space left broom-clean and ready for layout
What affects the quote
- Whether the floors above and below stay occupied while the work runs
- Building rules — most managed buildings restrict work hours, elevator use and loading dock windows, and that alone can double a schedule
- What the walls turn out to contain: older Boston buildings routinely hide asbestos-containing mastic, plaster keys, knob-and-tube and abandoned services
- How the debris physically leaves — a chute to a container is fast, a service elevator and a hand-carry is not
- Whether anything is being salvaged, which changes removal from demolition to dismantling
- Fire-alarm and sprinkler isolation, which usually needs coordinating with the building and sometimes the fire department
Every job is quoted after we understand the site. Photographs of what needs to come down, and of how a machine would reach it, get you an accurate number faster than a description will.
Common questions
Before you call
Can the business next door stay open during the work?
Usually yes, and it is normally a requirement rather than a preference. It is handled with hard dust partitions, negative air where needed, protection of shared egress, and by scheduling the loud phases outside the neighbour's trading hours. What it costs is time, so it is worth being clear about it at quote stage rather than discovering it in week two.
What happens if you find asbestos mid-job?
Work in that area stops. In Massachusetts asbestos work is notified to MassDEP before it begins and there is a waiting period, so an unexpected find is a genuine schedule event, not a same-day fix. That is exactly why a survey before the job starts is cheaper than a survey after it starts — it moves the delay into the planning phase where it costs nothing.
Do you remove the flooring as well?
Yes — see floor removal. It is often the same mobilisation, and doing it in one visit avoids protecting a finished substrate twice.
Other services
Ready ToClear The Way?
Tell us about the project. Allied will take it from there.
