Demolition Dramas

Demolition was finally completed on 14th February. What a huge relief because of course, as with anything to do with this build it turned into a drama.
The demolition company engaged by Wisdom initially told us that they would have the demo completed by the New Year. Well it got to the end of January and apart from a couple of hours work here and there, and removal of the asbestos sheeting from the walls, the house was left standing in a half demolished state and no one could give us a date of when the demolition company would complete the job. They had already breached our council DA conditions because they had not notified the neighbours 7 days prior to removing the asbestos. We asked them to do this on numerous occasions and they kept telling us it wasn't necessary. They also hadn't posted any signage on the safety fence showing their company name or licence number which is a breach of Workcover regulations. The neighbour notification letters are also supposed to show the licence number. I was a bit suspicious of why they weren't willing to give a licence number. Out of frustration with the lack of progress on the demolition, I called to get a quote from another demo company to see if I could expedite the demolition. They said they required a site clearance certificate for the asbestos removal before they could come on site and advised I could get a copy from Workcover if one had been issued. So I called Workcover only to be told that the owner of the demolition company did not hold a current licence for asbestos removal and asked if they could investigate. Now I understood why there was no public notifications forthcoming that needed to include licence information. I asked if perhaps they were subcontracting and Workcover said an investigation would clear that up. So I thought if they found he was unlicensed we could get another company in to finish the demo quickly. In the meantime Wisdom's demo company had finally moved their heavy equipment in to complete our demolition. Workcover also decided to do an audit of our demolition to make sure the demo company was above board. Suddenly letters from the demo company went out to our neighbours notifying them of the asbestos removal, which had already mostly been done, so the letters, complete with poor grammar and spelling were backdated. Signage went up on the fence with the name of a totally different demo company, which apparently the job had been subcontracted to. Suddenly everything was being done by the book.
The demo company was really annoyed with me because they they said the Workcover audit would delay things. I don't understand how doing the job the way it should be done can delay things. Anyway once the house was cleared, they lifted all the concrete paths and driveway and found lots of asbestos buried beneath. We are still awaiting the bill for the additional asbestos removal but are expecting it to be at least $5000.