Tearing Down the House
The sun was out, the chill in the air was finally wearing off and the excavator was beginning to crunch through the corner of the house on Apalachee.
Shingles, wood paneling, drywall, insulation, old green carpet, windows and pipes, were all succumbing to the crunch of the giant metal claw. Watching this process was pure satisfaction.
Most of the time you have to walk into a house to see the interior. Not so on demolition day. As the excavator methodically chomped into the roof and carefully pulled down trusses and exterior walls, the rooms of the house were slowly exposed to light, like opening up a dollhouse. And as the debris piled up, I couldn’t help thinking about all the years the house had been standing, the hands who’d built it, the people who’d walked up and down the carpeted stairs, swept the kitchen floor and made fires while peering out the glass sliders.
I also couldn’t help thinking about the disintegrating insulation, slowly turning to dust inside the walls, the peeling linoleum, and the carpet padding made of God knows what. When it’s time, it’s time. When the title of “home” is no longer, you realize it’s just a collection of wood and metal, stitched neatly together with nails and strong adhesive, standing for a time, keeping beds and clothing dry. A structure symbolizing safety and relief for decades of inhabitants is just a matchstick house to the excavator. It crumples and breaks, returns to dust.
Watching a house be demolished is oddly relieving. Once materials have worn out to a certain point, repair isn’t even possible. Without a huge influx of energy the house would be falling down anyway. The excavator just speeds up the process. And does it very neatly, I must say – crunching the debris pile all along the way, separating big metal pieces like the bathtub and staircases from the every-growing mix of wood and wires, then sweeping it all up into a giant trailer to be hauled off to the dump. Just like tearing down a Lego castle and putting the blocks away, but on a slightly larger scale.
The scale is the exhilarating part. The claw just has no qualms about ripping down a huge two-story house. In a matter of hours! Rips into the floor, plucks out two flights of metal stairs, pulls the roof down, no big deal. Bye, house.
I can’t believe the team at Wood Excavating gets to do this all the time. I’m so jealous. Even though I could never handle the pressure, I would so enjoy demolishing structures with a giant machine.
More destruction to come!