The Bronx
Attached and semi-attached brick walk-ups on narrow streets, where a party wall is shared with the neighbour and kerb space for a container has to be arranged rather than assumed.
About Breakara Demolition
Breakara Demolition serves all five New York City boroughs. Interior strip-outs, whole buildings, concrete, and the debris that comes with them.
One company, the whole city
Breakara works across the whole of New York City rather than treating each borough as a separate business. The same company quotes the job, plans the sequence and clears the site, whichever of the five it is in.
What changes between boroughs is the building, not the company. A party wall, a freight elevator, two hours of kerb space and a co-op board's alteration agreement are the things that make two identical scopes price differently, and knowing that before the walk-through is the practical reason two contractors quote the same job differently: one has accounted for the access and the other is pricing it as risk.
A job that crosses a boundary does not become two jobs. One scope, one price.
How the work is approached
Four things that do not change with the size of the job.
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The walk-through decides everything else
What is coming out, what is staying, what is above and below, how a truck gets near it, and whether the job needs a filing before it can begin. A price given without that visit is a guess wearing a number.
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Sequence before speed
In demolition, the order material comes down in is what keeps the rest of the structure, and the building next door, standing. We settle that before anything opens up rather than improvising once it has.
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Protection is part of the job
We cover what stays and protect the route everything is carried along, and we take both out at the end rather than cleaning around them. On an occupied building that is most of the difference between a good contractor and a cheap one.
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The debris is planned in
We load it, carry it and deliver it to a facility licensed to receive it as part of the work, because in New York it cannot go out any other way. We put the number of containers and trips in the estimate rather than on the last invoice.
How we fit around the rest of your project
Demolition is rarely the only trade on a job, and we plan the work around the people who come before and after us.
Where an architect or engineer is preparing a filing, we work to their scope and their sequence, and we tell you early which parts of our work can run while that filing is in progress and which cannot. Knowing that at the start is usually worth more than any single day we save on site.
Where there is a general contractor, we take our dates from their programme and hand the space back in the state their next trade needs. We cut and cap services back to the point the incoming trade wants to pick them up, and we label what we leave rather than making somebody trace it.
Where the building has an alteration agreement, we supply the crew details, dates and protection plan the managing agent asks for, in the form they usually want them, so your approval is not held up waiting on us.
And where the work needs a permit before it can start, we tell you on the first call, so you can start that conversation with your design professional at the right time.
What to expect from the first call to a cleared site
You describe the job
The borough, the type of building, what is coming out and what is staying. You get a straight answer about what is involved and whether it is permitted work.
Somebody looks at it
Where it is practical, the space is walked. Access, what is structural, what the building's rules allow, and where the material will go.
You get a price and a date
For the work as described, with a start date that accounts for any filing. If the scope changes on site, we agree it with you before anything else happens.
The site is cleared and handed back
Debris carried to a facility licensed to receive it, protection out last, and the space swept for whoever is coming next.
Questions about working with Breakara
Do you give written scopes?
Yes, and the written scope is what governs. Anything agreed on site that changes it gets written down before it happens rather than appearing later as an extra.
Who is actually on site?
Who is on site is agreed as part of the scope rather than left to find out on the morning, and continuity through the job is part of what gets agreed.
Do you work on occupied buildings?
Regularly, and it changes how the job is run rather than whether it can be. Containment, working hours, protection of common areas and the carry route all become part of the scope, and the building's own alteration agreement usually sets the schedule.
Can you work with our architect or general contractor?
Yes. Where there is a design professional or a GC already involved, Breakara works to their scope and their sequence, and the useful conversation is usually the one about access and disposal that nobody has had yet.
The boroughs Breakara serves
Every one of them. Call the number on this page for a job anywhere in the city.
Queens
Pre-war elevator buildings and two-family houses, where most of what comes out leaves through a service door, on hours the building sets rather than the job.
Manhattan
Pre-war blocks where the freight elevator and the building hours set the schedule, and where kerb space in front of the door is the scarcest thing on the job.
Brooklyn
Brownstone and brick row houses with high stoops, where the carry route runs down a full flight before it reaches the pavement and the front of the building is the only way in.
Staten Island
Detached frame houses with their own driveways, which is the one part of the city where a machine and a container can usually get close to the work.
Tell us what is coming out, and where it is.
You will get a straight answer on the first call, including whether it needs a filing before it can start.