Skip to content
Demox

Miami-Dade County

Selective Demolition

Removing exactly what the drawings mark and nothing beside it, with the rest left in service.

Who usually calls

A phased renovation in an occupied building. The buyer cares about protection of what stays and about who signs off on the line.

Selective demolition is removing exactly what the drawings mark and nothing beside it, with the rest of the building in service. It is the scope where the expensive mistakes happen, because the margin for error is a line on a drawing rather than a wall.

The work is mostly preparation. The removal line gets marked on site and agreed before anything starts, services crossing it are traced and isolated, what remains is protected, and anything load-bearing is shored to an engineer's design before it is touched. The demolition itself is the short part.

It is also the scope where a contractor's documentation earns its fee. Photographs of the marked line before, the isolated services during, and the handed-over state after are what settle a disagreement later about what was supposed to come out.

Licensing, plainly

This scope is licensed contracting in Florida, and ISP GROUP LLC does not hold that licence today. So we are not offering to perform it and you should not read this page as a bid for it. What is written here is what the work involves and what the county requires, which is true whoever does it.

What we can do now: walk the site, scope and document the work, handle the survey, the notification and the permit paperwork, bring in a licensed contractor who contracts that part directly with you, and do the clearance, haulage and disposal ourselves. When you take bids, ask every contractor for a licence number and verify it on the issuing register.

Taped and sheeted containment line inside an occupied floor, one bay open, the rest untouched.
Taped and sheeted containment line inside an occupied floor, one bay open, the rest untouched. Generated footage, not a job of ours and not a recording of one. It shows what the scope looks like. Our own work goes up as clients release it.

Scope

What is in the job.

Included

  • Removal line marked on site and signed off before work starts
  • Services crossing the line traced, isolated and capped by the licensed trade
  • Temporary support and shoring to an engineer's design where load paths change
  • Protection of everything that stays, including finishes that are not part of the scope
  • Removal in the sequence the engineer sets, not the quickest one
  • Debris out, interfaces made safe, photographic record at each stage
Taped and sheeted containment line inside an occupied floor, one bay open, the rest untouched.
Licensed stock photograph of the same kind of work.

What moves the price

We do not publish a rate for this, because a number given without seeing the site is either useless or untrue. These are the things that decide it.

  • How much stays. Protecting a finished space costs more than clearing an empty one
  • Shoring design and duration, which an engineer sets and which can exceed the removal cost
  • Service diversions, often the longest lead item on the job
  • Working around occupation, which fragments the programme into windows
  • The quality of the information. Missing as-builts mean opening up to find out

Permits

Where this scope sits with the county.

Selective removal that touches structure needs an engineer's drawing and a permit. Removal that does not may still need one once mechanical, electrical or plumbing is involved. Miami-Dade requires an asbestos survey before demolition regardless of the year the building went up, and the federal NESHAP notification runs ten working days from a correctly filed notice. That clock runs in parallel with everything else, so it is filed first, not last.

Have this ready

  • Drawings with the removal scope marked, or time on site to mark it together
  • Whatever as-built information exists for services in the affected area
  • An engineer already appointed if structure is involved, because that is usually the critical path
  • Agreement on what the interface should look like when it is finished

None of it is required to get a visit booked. All of it makes the number firmer and the date earlier.

The full permit sequence, with sources, is on the permits and asbestos page.

Questions

What people ask about selective demolition.

Can you take out a load-bearing wall?

With an engineer's design, the right shoring and a permit, yes. Without those three, nobody should, and the shoring is often the bigger half of the cost.

What if there are no drawings?

Then the first scope is investigation: opening up in agreed places to find out what is there. It is cheaper as a planned exercise than as a discovery halfway through.

How do you protect what stays?

Hoarding, floor and surface protection, dust control at the line and a sequence that keeps the clean side clean. It is a real line in the quote because it is real work.

Usually bundled with