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Diversified Excavating & Site Utilities
Two-story Michigan house coming down under an excavator on a cleared residential lot

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House Down, Lot Cleared.

Home demolition
in Ann Arbor, MI.

If an old house on your Ann Arbor property needs to come down, tell us about the structure, the lot, and what you plan to do with the site next.

We will look at the building, basement, utilities, access, and neighboring property before preparing a no-cost estimate.

(734) 802-2358

Fast Free Quote

Send the address, the square footage, and whether a basement sits under the house, and the office sends a number back.

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Want to talk sooner? Call the office at (734) 802-2358.

“We inherited a 1940s bungalow that had sat empty through two winters and was not worth repairing. Diversified handled the disconnects, dropped the house, crushed the basement walls, and hauled everything out inside a week. The lot was flat and seeded before the builder ever showed up.”

– Marguerite S., Homeowner - Barton Hills

Home Demolition Ann Arbor

Home demolition Ann Arbor planning turns on one decision: whether the entire structure comes down or a defined section of it stays. Everything after that follows from the answer, including disconnects, debris volume, and what the lot has to carry next.

Home demolition Ann Arbor is where structure notes, disconnect status, survey results, and finish grade sit together.

The house may be a frame bungalow, a brick ranch, a two-story sitting over a full basement, or a cottage on a crawl space. Each carries a different debris weight and leaves a different hole behind.

Count the rooms, the stories, and the attached pieces before a bid gets written. A porch, a breezeway, a sunroom, and a garage tied to the house all add square footage that a listing sheet often leaves out.

The basement is where most teardown budgets move. Decide early whether footings and walls get hauled off or buried under approved fill, because that answer drives truck counts and what a builder can set on top.

Put the finish condition on paper: bare rough grade, seeded topsoil, or an excavation left open for the new foundation. That single line takes away most of the guesswork a bidder is otherwise left with.

Our services

What the job covers.

A teardown breaks into five jobs: survey, disconnect, demolish, haul, and grade. Leaving any of them off paper is how one price becomes a different price halfway through. Anyone comparing bids ought to have square footage, basement depth, and the equipment approach written down already. Home demolition Ann Arbor scopes run from the survey through to the grade elevation you name.

01

Whole House Teardown

A full teardown means roof, walls, floors, and framing all leave the property as debris. Machine size follows the structure, since a single-story ranch and a two-and-a-half-story foursquare differ in reach and in duration. Owners searching home demolition near me get further by sending the year built, the footprint, and photos of each elevation.

Chimneys, brick veneer, and slate roofing come off heavier than a bidder assumes from a street photo. Anything you want salvaged, whether that is a mantel, a claw foot tub, or old lumber, has to be pulled before the machine starts. Fences, mature trees, and the house next door get protected and marked ahead of the first pass. Say where the machine stages, because a narrow city lot decides the sequence more than the square footage does.

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02

Partial Demolition And Additions

Not every job takes the whole house. A rear addition, a second-story pop-top, a failed sunroom, or a fire-damaged wing can come off while the rest stays occupied. The line where removal stops has to be marked on a photograph, not described over the phone. Temporary bracing, a weather wall, and a roof tie-in usually belong to the carpenter following behind us.

Utilities feeding the removed section get isolated without killing service to the part you are keeping. Cutting through a shared wall exposes wiring, plumbing, and sometimes a bearing condition nobody expected. Write down who dries the opening in before the first rain lands on it.

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03

Attached Garage And Porches

Attached structures share footings, framing, and roof lines with the house, so they rarely come off cleanly on their own. Front porches carry piers or a slab that reaches deeper than the porch floor suggests. Any bid for Ann Arbor home demolition services should price the attached pieces alongside the main structure rather than as an afterthought.

Breezeways, mudrooms, and enclosed side entries hide old openings in the foundation wall. Concrete stoops carry footings that either leave with the porch or stay put by design. Read how demolition jobs get scoped across Ann Arbor when more than one structure on the lot is involved. Detached buildings are a separate line item and belong on their own row in the quote.

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04

Basement And Foundation

Home demolition Ann Arbor budgets are decided below grade more than by anything above it. Block, poured wall, and fieldstone foundations each break and load differently. Complete removal hauls off walls, footings, and slab, which is what most builders want under a new house. Foundation removal is a topic on its own, and if the house is already gone it gets scoped separately from a teardown.

Under a partial approach the slab gets broken so water drains, the walls fold inward, and clean fill covers what remains. That is cheaper today and can restrict what gets built on the footprint later, so keep the method on paper. Which approach a parcel allows gets answered by the City of Ann Arbor, so settle it before picking one.

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05

Utility Disconnects

Nothing gets touched until gas, water, sewer, and electric are confirmed off in writing. Each of those runs through a different party, and the timelines rarely line up on their own. Gas is capped at the main by the provider, and the meter usually leaves at that same visit.

Water service gets shut at the curb stop and the sewer lead is plugged where the jurisdiction requires it. Electric service is cut and the meter removed before a machine ever swings near the drop. Overhead lines crossing the yard are their own conversation with the utility, and a temporary relocation can take weeks. A home demolition contractor Ann Arbor MI owner hires should show you the disconnect confirmations, not just say they are handled.

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06

Asbestos And Hazard Survey

Older houses carry material that has to be identified before demolition, and in Michigan a survey by a licensed inspector is the normal first step. Siding, floor tile, pipe wrap, roofing felt, and old plaster are the usual suspects. Lead paint, buried fuel oil tanks, and stored chemicals each bring their own questions. Owners calling home demolition companies in Ann Arbor deserve a straight answer on who orders the survey and who pays for abatement.

Regulated material comes out under a separate abatement scope before the structure is touched. Notification requirements belong to the party the rule names, and a contractor scope does not discharge that obligation. Budget the survey early, because a positive result changes both the schedule and the disposal plan.

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07

Debris Loading And Recycling

A house generates far more volume than owners picture, and hauling is a real share of the price. Wood framing, drywall, shingles, and insulation ride out as mixed construction debris. Concrete, brick, and scrap metal stay sorted on site so a recycler can take them rather than a landfill.

Clean concrete is crushed for reuse as aggregate and steel goes to a scrap yard, which trims disposal tonnage. Appliances, tires, paint, and anything with a compressor in it get handled separately from the building material. Truck routing sets the pace: a lot that takes a full-size trailer moves faster than one served by tandem loads. Ask how disposal is figured, since weight tickets and volume pricing describe two different bills.

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08

Backfill And Rough Grade

The hole underneath decides whether the lot is usable next spring. Fill goes back in lifts, with compaction after each one, or the footprint settles into a dish. Where a new house is planned, the builder or an engineer specifies the material and the compaction the design calls for. Topsoil and seed at the end deserve naming in the scope rather than assuming.

Slope the finished surface so water runs off the footprint and away from anything still standing nearby. A lot turned over at a stated rough-grade elevation gives the next crew something to measure against. Say whether the driveway approach and the walk stay for the rebuild or leave with the house.

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More Ann Arbor demolition

Related pages.

On site

Check out our work.

Blue utility line being installed through a residential yard
Wide view of site preparation and earthmoving work
Deep shored utility excavation with a crew working below grade
Vertical drainage structure connected below grade
Excavator setting large drainage pipe on a prepared site
Green utility conduit placed in a narrow trench
Concrete and brick sorted for recycling in Ann Arbor
Compacted lifts of clean fill filling a basement void in Ann Arbor
Rough graded lot ready for rebuild after Ann Arbor home demolition

Local context

About Ann Arbor.

Ann Arbor serves as the seat of Washtenaw County, and its older housing sits largely within the 48104 ZIP Code. Gallup Park and Nichols Arboretum give bearings when you describe where a property sits, with the Huron River bending past both. Four distinct seasons work on a vacant house here, cycling it through frost, thaw, and another round of water damage.

The Census Bureau put this city at 122,233 people in its July 2025 estimate. ACS data for 2024 shows local unemployment of 3.6%, under the 5.2% figure for the country. Sales tax here is Michigan’s flat 6%, while the national combined average, weighted by population, lands at 7.53%. Figures like those settle nothing at a specific address, so a City of Ann Arbor answer on teardown paperwork should come before the calendar gets filled in.

Nearby

Areas we serve.

  • Whitmore Lake, MI
  • Plymouth, MI
  • Chelsea, MI
  • Ypsilanti, MI
  • South Lyon, MI
  • Milan, MI
  • Canton, MI
  • Brighton, MI
  • Saline, MI
  • Van Buren Township, MI
  • Dexter, MI
  • Manchester, MI
Open a Google Maps search for Ann Arbor, Michigan
Excavator tearing down a residential structure

About us

Who does the work.

A home demolition Ann Arbor bid sheet reads clean once you have named the structure, the basement method, and the grade the job finishes at. Take a minute to see how Diversified Excavating approaches demolition, and then supply the address, the square footage, and the date the lot has to be clear.

Excavators, loaders, and dump trucks sit at our Ypsilanti yard, minutes from most addresses around Ann Arbor. The same crew takes the structure, the basement, and the haul, so the job does not get passed between three companies.

Homeowners shopping residential demolition contractors near me benefit from a written record of the survey, the disconnects, and the fill method. Utility sign-offs, municipal approvals, and engineering opinions sit with whoever owns them.

Expect us to name the steps your teardown touches, and about where each lands on the calendar. Naming the finish condition is what keeps two estimates pointed at the same scope.

Pricing

Cost & budget estimations.

Home demolition Ann Arbor prices ride on square footage, story count, foundation type, survey findings, and truck access to the house. A small ranch over a crawl space and a two-story over a full basement price out differently at the same street frontage.

Ask which items the number covers, because survey, abatement, disconnects, basement removal, fill, and restoration all move it. A home demolition cost Ann Arbor number leaving those items unstated is priced against a fraction of the job.

With a garage, a pool, or a slab coming out on the same trip, our overview of demolition work throughout Ann Arbor explains how the pieces get ordered on one lot. Photos and square footage sent to our office let us price the work against the end condition you describe.

A phone quote priced by the square foot is no scope at all, and it will not hold up at the first basement wall. Walk the house, settle the fill method, and price the work against what you both saw.

Benefits of professional demolition services

A structure measured, photographed, and surveyed ahead of the bids gives house teardown Ann Arbor MI bidders the same starting facts.

Splitting the survey, the disconnects, and the basement onto separate lines keeps a whole house demolition Ann Arbor price honest.

Any Ann Arbor house demolition contractor should hand back a stated finish elevation, not an empty lot and a shrug.

Questions

Frequently asked questions.

What actually drives a house teardown price here?

Square footage sets the baseline, though stories, foundation type, and access move the number just as far. A full basement adds breaking, loading, and fill that a crawl space never sees. The asbestos survey comes first, and a positive result adds an abatement scope with its own price. Disposal gets billed on weight, so a plaster-and-brick house loads heavier than the same footprint in drywall and vinyl. Access matters on a narrow lot, because a machine unable to reach the back corner works slower and stages elsewhere. Anyone who will tear down a house Ann Arbor builders plan to rebuild on should price fill and compaction as their own item. Send the year built, the address, the square footage, and photos of all four sides, and a quote follows from that.

Which approvals come first on a teardown here?

Most teardowns need a demolition permit, and the application rarely moves without disconnect confirmations attached. Gas, water, sewer, and electric each have their own sign-off, and those come from the utility rather than from us. An asbestos survey and any required notification typically have to be complete before the permit is issued. Requirements differ for a full teardown, a partial removal, and a structure inside a historic district, so let the City of Ann Arbor tell you what governs your parcel. Sidewalk closures, dumpster placement, and roadway access can each carry separate approvals. Our residential work shows the level of detail that keeps these conversations short. No machine gets scheduled until approvals and disconnects are in hand.

What is a realistic schedule from first call to finished grade?

Demolition itself is the short part, often two or three days for an average house over a basement. Reaching that day takes longer, because survey, abatement, disconnect, and permit steps run in sequence instead of side by side. Utility disconnects are the usual bottleneck and can stretch out for weeks depending on the service. Abatement adds days or weeks of its own whenever regulated material turns up. Hauling tracks truck routing to the lot and the load count a day permits. Backfill, compaction, and finish grading add time once the structure is gone, and saturated clay stops compaction work altogether. Work the calendar backward from the date a builder needs the lot instead of forward from the teardown.

What is the lot like once the house and basement are gone?

You decide that, and it belongs settled in the quote before work starts. Under a full removal, the walls, footings, and slab all leave and the void gets filled with clean material in compacted lifts. With a partial approach, the slab is broken so water drains and approved material stays buried, which limits what can be built there afterward. Fill quality matters more than fill quantity, and organics, plaster, and wood cannot be part of it. Where a new house follows, the builder or the engineer sets the compaction the foundation design requires. Most lots are handed back at rough grade and topsoiled, though seed and straw are worth asking for if the ground will sit a season. Photograph the finished grade the day we pull off, and whoever builds next has a record rather than a story.

Reviews

What our clients are saying.

Our Old West Side rental had a cracked foundation and a roof nobody wanted to fix again. They pulled the permits with us, waited out the gas disconnect without pushing, and had the house and the basement gone in three days. The neighbor’s fence and both maples came through untouched.

Hollis N., Property manager - Old West Side

We took off a rotted back addition and kept the front of the house lived in the whole time. The crew braced the opening, cut clean at the old wall, and covered it before the rain came Thursday. Nothing in the kitchen ever lost power.

Priya D., Homeowner - Water Hill

They caught buried fuel oil tank piping that the survey missed and stopped to sort it out properly. Lot came back flat and seeded, exactly the way they described it in April.

Everett J., Homeowner - Lansdowne

Contact us today

Have a site to clear?

Write down square footage, story count, foundation type, and the shape you want the ground left in. Attached porches, a connected garage, and any structure staying put each need a separate line in the scope.

Photos of every elevation, the basement stairs, the utility meters, and the approach cover most questions we would otherwise raise by phone. Surveys, abatement, disconnects, and municipal approvals belong to the party that owns each one.

Call (734) 802-2358 or fill in the quote request here, and we will go through home demolition Ann Arbor for your property.

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Excavator taking down a house