Farewell to a house

Some friends in Canberra were unfortunate enough to have unknowingly bought a house that had been treated with Mr Fluffy asbestos.  After the huge uproar in 2014 about the potential risk still represented by such dwellings they sold the house to the ACT Government and moved out.  They were told that today was demolition day, and as they were overseas I attended to take some photos.

Getting to their place involved going through the road works!  This did not put me in a good mood for dealing with the construction industry or its congeners in the demolition industry.

 Not having visited the former home site for some time, and not getting there via Buvelot St when I did, I was astonished to find at least 6 houses in the street were fenced off as Mr Fluffy victims.

 Before getting to the demolition I will give a big cheer for the guys involved in the work.  I spent a fair bit of time talking to some of them and they were pleasant and interesting in the conversation and clearly knew what they were doing.  When I commented about the number of Mr Fluffy houses in Buvelot St one explained that Mr Fluffy himself lived there and promoted his services to his neighbours!

The first thing I noticed when I arrived was an air monitor hung off the temporary fence.

There was a bit of a delay while the excavator was floated up the hill.  They didn't try to back the low loaded into the drive but used tyres to keep the tracks off the bitumen.

 Just off the bitumen!

Because they have to operate with good vision of what the excavator is whupping and this block sloped from the back it had to be demolished from the back.  This meant the spectator's view wasn't as good as in some other cases.  However one can't argue against their logic.

It really was a big machine and just squeezed down the side of the house.  They wouldn't be able to do that in Gungahstly!

 Goodbye deck, goodbye clothesline!

After some organisational matters were dealt with there were some loud crashes and the view through the front door - or where the front door used to be - changed a bit.

 After about 30 minutes the bedrooms had become somewhat more ventilated than was previously the case.

 This beats huffing and puffing!

 Farewell to the antenna!  (The fan thing is a fogger, spraying water vapour to keep the dust down.)

 A few images of the process.

 Now you know what the underside of a roof looks like!  Note also the gap around the window!

 Getting near the end.

 The guys out the back spraying water from a Karcher were dressed in traditional HAZMAT gear.

 Goodbye to the last wall.

 And here goes the veranda.

That was about it for me.  Later a former resident (who had other commitments during the event) went by and snapped this.

Definitely an ending.

As I said goodbye  at the site Terry from IQON said "We try to do it respectfully."  In my view they achieve that.

So even though I felt a tad sad I could face those still working on Captains Flat Rd with a little more positive in my mind.