House Demolition Cost: Debris Tons, Gate Fees, and Land Clearing

House demolition cost is a weight problem

Every line on a teardown bends around one number: how many tons come off the lot. Tons set the truck count, the gate fee and the machine time.

That weight is published. EPA surveyed real teardowns and printed pounds a square foot.

SimplyWise Cost Estimator turns a photo of the structure into an itemized estimate in about 6 seconds.

Published debris factors, by what leaves with the house

The first three rows are EPA’s residential demolition worksheet. The interior row is a single Portland house remodel from EPA’s renovation surveys. The 50 lb figure is nine surveyed single family teardowns. Concrete is most of the gap: 48.4 of the 98.4, 108.7 of the 158.7.

Multi family surveyed at 127 lb. Nonresidential averaged 158 but ran 36 to 358, so never put a commercial factor on a house. It reads high for a bare strip out.

The gate fee is the line that moves the bid

Three named public facilities, not a national average. No national tipping fee exists. On 127 tons that spread is $8,255 against $30,909 for the same house.

Permits are published too. Portland charges $1,352.00 for a residential demolition permit, sewer cap and erosion control extra. For what rolls off instead, see dumpster rental prices.

Two lines a teardown cannot skip

The federal asbestos rule defines a facility at 40 CFR 61.141 to exclude residential buildings of four or fewer units, so a lone house sits outside it. Demolish more than one house at one site under one owner and 61.141 counts the group as an installation, so 61.145(a) applies: inspect first, then notice 10 working days out, and under 61.145(b)(3)(i) that clock runs even when nothing turns up.

OSHA adds the second. Rule 1926.850(a) wants a written engineering survey by a competent person. Rule 1926.850(c) has every gas, water, steam, sewer and electric line shut off, capped or otherwise controlled outside the building line first. Our asbestos removal cost page carries abatement.

Machine time and what the crew side pays

Caltrans publishes what it pays a contractor an hour to own and run equipment. In the September 2026 book a Caterpillar 320 excavator is $103.77. A 336F is $243.47, a D-6N XL crawler tractor $118.61. No operator is in that.

The May 2025 BLS OEWS table puts construction laborers at a $25.02 mean, a $37.54 ninetieth. Operating engineers sit at $31.87 and $48.60. Both are employee wages, not bill rates, and OEWS skips the self-employed.

Land clearing cost per acre, and the number nobody publishes

We found no published market price for land clearing an acre by density class, so this page prints none, and the calculator takes yours.

The disposal half is published. Oregon Metro takes clean yard debris at $56.00 a ton and clean wood at $97.13. Both undercut the $176.70 mixed rate, so separating brush pays. Alachua takes brush at $65.00. Stumps are their own line: see stump grinding cost.

Price a demolition in four steps

1. Weigh it before you price it

   Square footage times the published factor, over 2,000, is your tons.

2. Call the gate you actually use

   Get the fee a ton, the minimum load, and whether it takes mixed debris.

3. Put the compliance lines on the sheet first

   Your state asbestos survey, the OSHA engineering survey, the utility caps.

4. Set machine and crew off your own numbers

   Published ownership rates and wage tables are reference points, not bill rates.