Tips for drywall demolitions
 

I'm in the waste hauling industry and we've just recently been notified by the city of vancouver that there will be new restrictions in regards to disposing of drywall.

I'm posting this because I've delt with alot of home owners and contractors who don't know about these new rules before undertaking a project in their home to realize that the cost for removal skyrocketed from their original estimates.

these new regulations apply more so to the commercial haulers than to home owners but I thought I would let you guys know in case some of you decide to hire a commercial hauler to take away large amounts ( >2 sheets) of drywall and get stuck with a huuuge bill if your drywall contained asbestos


If you are doing any renovations that require you to remove gypsum drywall in your home that is older than 1984 you will need to send a drywall sample to a lab to have it tested for asbestos. If it does contain asbestos you will have to hire an enviromental company to properly remove it from your house and disposed of. If it does not contain asbestos, you will have to provide the hauler with the laboratory results.


good luck with all your new renos!

The lab report will cost 500-700 and if it does not contain asbestos it will not cost anymore than what it was before plus the 500-700 lab report. But if your drywall contains asbestos, it will have to be removed according to wcb rules which will cost way more money.

I'm curious who or how they plan to enforce it? Is it part of the permit process? I'm glad demo is never part of our scope of work.

In Sask they don't even recycle drywall or anything for that matter. Everything goes into the same bin and is dumped at the same location.

thanks for heads up, this is good to know.. but i honestly do NOT see many smaller reno companies following these rules. It's anything but easy times plenty of projects for them in this fckin city, and there has already been some rule changes in the last little while at the dump that has annoyed contractors, so another Vancouver city cash grab no doubt approved thanks to our "green" mayor is just another hurdle they plan on going around, no intention of jumping

firstly, it's a city cash grab, second it's gonna stall fcking renovation time a LOT, thirdly it will incurr extra costs for the owner and they will have a tendency to try and skip and find another contractor who will bypass this extra cost incurring method by disposing the old way....
so I'm thinkin right now, how many smaller and midsize renovation/demolition companies are willing to potentially lose not just valuable time, but customers as well..

I am curious however is how the city's garbage dumps are planning on enforcing this rule... my dad runs a small renovation company for over 10 years now, I work with him and few times a month I'm at the dump disposing demolition materials... tiles, drywall, wood, etc....
so this directly affects what I do as well, guess I'll see my next trip to the dump

The city is currently is already enforcing it by declining loads that contain more than 2 sheets of drywall.
If you have anymore, they will be sending you to New west gypsum where if you dont have lab results or proof that the drywall is manufactured after 1984 they are turning you away.

it'll most likely be part of permit process, but so many small contractors that skip it when they are doing small guts that no one knows about the new regulations.
This won't affect the large contractors who do whole house demo's as they already get the house tested for asbestos before they even start knocking out drywall.


I just dumped my last load of drywall that weighed approximately 4000kg with no documentation, however I had to state where the drywall came from and what contractor took it down.

I have my own construction company and deal with asbestos pretty much every time we start a project. Every house has to be inspected for asbestos. When the report comes back you get everything that came up positive removed. You have to use a proper company and they will give you a clearance letter. Then you can dump anything else you have with that clearance letter. If anyone has any questions feel free to PM me.

I think I might be misunderstanding but if you dump more then 2 sheets of drywall you need lab results? How do they differ between new contstruction drywall scrap and old scrap? I guess what I'm getting at is whats to stop someone from just gutting the house and dumping it themselves at any of the wastech locations?

It's a cash grab for sure and one I don't think can be easily enforced. People will just go to the dump, lie and say it's from new construction.

Correct, You will need lab results for more than 2 sheets because the city only accepts 2 sheets or less, however thats barely enforced and is determined by the guy who is supervising you unloading.

If the guy supervising you unloading is strict, he'll send you to New West Gypsum and to get in there you will need lab results if its older than 1984. However NWG did not explain how we can determine if its newer than 1984 besides calling Urban Enviromental.

So I called them and their response was send it in for tests.


whats stopping homeowners? well wastech is a contractor for the city and they have to follow city/wcb rules when it comes to garbage. So the scale operator will probably turn them away when asked what they are bringing in.
I've been turned away before at the surrey location because of the amount of drywall i was carrying.

Well new construction scrap and demolition scrap is pretty easy to tell the difference with paint being on the drywall being a reason.

and I agree, huge cash grab for the environmental companies who would be carrying on the tests

I know my company competes directly against unscrupulous contractors willing to perform vermiculite insulation removals without performing the necessary tests, and in our industry there will always be the companies willing to cut corners to appeal to cheap home owners. The contractors proceed to dump the removed material at illegal dump sites where no one cares that you lack a lab report, and since the workers are most likely paid cash there's no evidence if one of them develops medical complications as a result of asbestos exposure.

I'm sure the environmental companies will be printing money off the tests and it's definitely a PITA for us to deal with, but it makes sense. I don't want asbestos contaminating new batches of drywall and the people handling the material once it's off our hands shouldn't need to deal with it either. That's just my opinion, I know it won't be popular.

I wonder how complicated it is to open an environmental testing lab.. :considered:

Sask doesn't require you recycle drywall :fulloffuck:
The amount of drywall saved from landfills every year by requiring it be recycled is unbelievable.

I see a lot more illegal dumping.

Yeah, I was kind of blown away when I got here. I was told that Alberta doesn't either but I don't know for sure, never worked there.

From what i remember testing siding/roofing for asbestos the cost was under 100$.

From what i've seen and heard around our industry, nothing is recycled east of BC :badpokerface:


If anyone watches Mike Holmes, they mix all their stuff together in a bin and it gets dumped all at once

that's disgusting, drywall getting dumped along with the rest of garbage, i mean can you imagine that shit ending up as compost in some garbage fill somewhere, geez put that shit in your ground see what grows...

but what we got here in BC now is the total opposite end of the spectrum, they doin TOO much trying to enforce all these new hefty regulations... needs to be a fair middle ground for all provinces, and if they REALLY wanted to take care of the environment regarding this drywall issue, they would have the city garbage depots take all kinds of drywall, including the bathroom with tile stuck on it, and not just 2 sheets even at a reasonable extra charge where it won't turn people away. Then run a dedicated city truck drywall disposal service out of the garbage depots, take it somewhere safe and dispose of it the proper way where it won't be a risk to the environment.
Guaranteed this would go a much longer way in terms of actually helping solve the issue as opposed to "hey this drywall thing is a problem let's fix it, but at the same time let's make a shitload of money while we at it"

but we got a guy in office right now (Mr. Bikelane) who wanted to put fckin goats in the front lawn of city hall to eat up all the grass so he wouldn't have to hire lawn care professionals with their gas powered mowing machines to cut the grass, :ahwow:

Or a mold/asbestos abatement company. I was thinking about this last time I did a demo on a leaky townhouse.

Yeah on HOH, they just dump it into the same bin. I always thought one of the workers went with the truck and separated it at the transit station. Guess not.

Every time I see them demo lathe and plaster on TV, they just have at er. I wonder how much of that actually contains asbestos.

Last I heard was the dump was taking ten bags from anyone doing a Reno. Bags had to double bagged and labeled asbestos.

reminded me when my parents were building their new house last summer ... all kinds of things were dumped in the site everynight as if they were running their own recycling center ...

mattresses, TV's, fridges, washers/dryers, couches, tables, charis, stroves, old tires, rusted out bicycles... enough stuffs to fully furnish their new house ...

they push it pretty hard even in surrey

we did a demo a while back and i had a couple labour ready guys working with me basically sorting shit and puting it into the appropriate dumpsters [basically either metal or drywall]

i caught one of the guys tossing a couple peices of insulation into the drywall bin so i was like wtf.. jumped in and took it out

the next day buddy from the disposal company is tweaking and saying him/us are gonna get fined hella because of the insulation in the drywall

where as, i could not even see any other peices etc. when i hopped into the bin