Interior Demolition in Queens

Interior demolition is taking the inside of a space apart while the building around it stays standing. Partitions, kitchens, bathrooms, ceilings, flooring, fixtures, and where the scope calls for it, back to bare frame.

We do this work across Queens for the people who usually need it:

• Landlords turning a unit over between tenants.
• General contractors who need a space cleared to schedule before their own trades can start.
• Storefront and commercial tenants stripping out a previous fit-out before a build-out.
• Co-op and condo shareholders renovating an apartment inside a building's alteration rules.

Those are four different jobs with four different pressures. A GC needs the space empty on a date. A shareholder needs the building to stay happy. We plan around whichever one you are.

If you are calling it a gut renovation, this is the part of it we do. A gut is the demolition phase plus everything that comes after it, and we are the trade that takes the space back to frame so the rest can start.

Scope is agreed before we start and written down, so there is no argument later about what "gut" meant.

• Non-structural partitions and the framing behind them
• Kitchens, including cabinetry, counters and appliances
• Bathrooms, including tile, fixtures and substrate
• Ceilings, bulkheads and dropped grids
• Flooring and underlayment, down to the subfloor or slab
• Doors, frames, trim and built-in millwork
• Back to bare studs and joists, where that is the scope

We tell you plainly which parts of your list are structural and which are not, before anything comes out. That is a conversation to have at the survey, not mid-job.

Most interior work in Queens happens in a building where other people are living or trading the whole time. In a co-op or a managed rental, the demolition is rarely the difficult part. The building's own requirements are.

That is the ordinary case here rather than the exception. Jackson Heights is largely co-op, and prewar elevator buildings run through Rego Park, Forest Hills, Woodside and Sunnyside, which where we work sets out in more detail. In a walk-up anywhere in the borough there is no service elevator at all, and every piece of material goes down a staircase by hand.

What a building will typically want settled before anyone starts:

• An alteration agreement, signed, with the scope attached.
• A certificate of insurance naming the building, the managing agent and often the board, in the exact wording they specify.
• Approved working hours, which in most residential buildings are weekdays only and narrower than you would expect.
• A booked service elevator, in slots, with padding installed.
• Protection of the route, meaning the lobby, corridors, elevator cab and stairs your material travels through.

Every building words these differently, and the wording is the part that holds a job up. Have the building's requirements to hand when you call and we will go through what they mean for the schedule.

If you have not started that process yet, say so on the call. It usually takes longer than the demolition does, and knowing that up front is the difference between a job that runs and a job that waits.

Selective demolition means some things come out and other things must not be touched. Getting that right is most of the skill.

Before anything comes down we walk the space and agree what stays: floors that are staying, a staircase, windows, a ceiling detail, an adjoining tenant's wall. Those get covered and protected before the first tool comes out of the van.

We isolate the work area so dust stays in it, and we keep the route out protected for the whole job rather than just at the start. In attached and semi-attached houses we plan work near a shared wall around the fact that it is shared, because the other side of it is somebody's living room.

Where a strip out reaches a slab, terrazzo or a raised floor, that is concrete removal and it is priced as its own thing, because the weight and the carry are different.

This is worth understanding before you plan a schedule, because it catches people out.

In New York City, interior work beyond minor cosmetic removal generally needs a Department of Buildings permit. That includes taking out a wall even when it is not load bearing, if the work affects egress, fire-rated construction, plumbing or electrical. Gut work is normally filed as an alteration.

The practical version: if you are taking out a partition and moving plumbing or power, assume a filing is involved. If you are pulling up tile and replacing a vanity in the same footprint, usually not.

Filing is done by a registered design professional, so that part sits with your architect or expediter rather than with us. What we will do is tell you where we think your scope lands, so you can start that conversation early instead of finding out at the wrong moment.

A gut generates far more material than most people picture, and in New York City it leaves the site with a registered carter and has to reach a registered facility.

So we work it out first: rough volume, where a container can legally stand, and how material travels from the unit to the container. In a walk-up that means a staircase and a hand carry. In an elevator building it means booked slots and a protected cab. On a street with no curb space it means timing.

What our demolition generates, we clear. The space is left swept and ready for the next trade.