Tearing something down is the easy part. Getting the utilities disconnected and signed off, the asbestos question answered, the debris hauled and disposed of legally, the hole backfilled and the site left buildable — that’s the job.
We handle demolition across Montgomery County: houses, mobile and manufactured homes, barns and outbuildings, slabs and foundations, pools, concrete, and selective interior work.
The most common demolition call in this county isn’t a house in town. It’s someone who bought acreage with something old standing on it and wants it gone so they can build.
What we demolish
Houses. Full teardown, debris haul-off, slab removal if you want it, hole backfilled and site graded.
Mobile and manufactured homes. Removal and disposal. Extremely common on acreage where an old single-wide sits on a lot someone wants to build on. Less material than a stick-built teardown and usually no slab.
Barns, shops and outbuildings. Pole barns, metal buildings, equipment barns, sheds.
Slabs and foundations. Concrete breakout and haul-off. Often a standalone job on a lot where the structure is already gone.
Pools. Partial fill — break the bottom so it drains, collapse the walls, fill and compact — or full removal with the shell hauled out. Full removal is what you need if anything is going to be built over that footprint.
Selective and interior demolition. Taking out part of a structure while the rest stays standing. Walls, ceilings, flooring, fixtures ahead of a remodel.
Concrete removal. Driveways, patios, sidewalks, footings.
Storm-damaged structures. Buildings that came down, or need to.
What has to happen before anything comes down
This is where demolition projects go wrong, and where most contractors won’t walk you through it. Every item here takes time, and most of them have to happen in order.
Utilities disconnected and capped, with sign-off. Electric, gas, water, sewer. Not turned off at the meter — disconnected at the source and capped, with the utility provider’s confirmation. Depending on the provider this takes days to weeks, and nobody should be swinging at a structure before it’s done.
Asbestos — and when it actually applies. Texas requires an asbestos survey before demolition of public and commercial buildings, with notification to the Department of State Health Services. Single-family homes and residential buildings of four units or fewer are excluded from that requirement — which covers most of what gets torn down on acreage out here. That exclusion does not hold when several houses come down together under one contract, or when a residence is part of a larger commercial project — EPA treats those as one facility. Barns, shops, commercial buildings and anything that was ever a business are a different question. Age is not the legal trigger, but it is the odds: anything built before about 1990 is where asbestos turns up most often, in floor tile, siding, pipe insulation and roofing. We don’t do abatement — that’s a licensed specialty — but we’ll tell you when a survey is required, and abatement has to be complete before demolition starts.
Permits where the jurisdiction requires them. Inside Conroe, Willis, Montgomery or any other city limit, expect a demolition permit. On unincorporated county acreage the requirements are lighter but not automatically zero, particularly near a floodplain. Requirements vary by jurisdiction and change — confirm with the authority having jurisdiction before you schedule.
Septic pumped and dealt with. If the structure is on septic, the tank has to be pumped and then either removed or properly collapsed and filled. An abandoned tank left intact is a liability and a hole waiting to open up under somebody.
Abandoned wells plugged. An abandoned water well has to be plugged to state standards. This comes up regularly on older Montgomery County homestead acreage and it is a frequent surprise.
Trees around the structure decided. What’s coming out with the building and what’s staying. Easier to decide standing in the yard than with a machine idling.
Know what you want left at the end. Slab out or slab stays? Hole just filled, or backfilled and compacted to build on? Site left rough or graded? These are the questions that change the scope, and they’re much easier to answer before than during.
Demolition on acreage — the real Montgomery County job
Someone buys five or twenty acres. On it: a collapsing barn, a single-wide from the seventies, a farmhouse nobody’s lived in for a decade. They want to build, and all of that is in the way.
That job is almost never just demolition. It’s demolition plus clearing plus a driveway plus a building pad, and running it as one project with one crew saves real money compared with three separate mobilizations. If that’s your situation, describe the whole picture on the first contact and it gets scoped as one job.
Old homestead sites hide things. On acreage in this county it’s routine to find more than the structure — an abandoned water well, an old septic system, a slab under the grass where something used to stand, buried farm debris, a cistern. We look for that before scoping the work, because finding it halfway through is how a fixed scope stops being fixed.
Access usually has to be solved first. An overgrown two-track is not a route for a lowboy and a roll-off truck. On grown-up acreage the first day is often clearing a path in and a place to work. See land clearing.
Floodplain matters here too. Structures along the San Jacinto, Lake Creek and Spring Creek are often in mapped flood zones. That can affect what’s allowed, what has to be documented, and what gets built back. Confirm it before you plan around it.
Scope — what’s usually included and what usually isn’t
Demolition quotes vary far more in what they cover than in anything else. This is what to check line by line.
| Item | Typically included | Usually separate |
|---|---|---|
| Knocking the structure down | Yes | — |
| Debris load-out and legal disposal | Yes | — |
| Slab and foundation removal | Sometimes — ask | Often a separate line |
| Asbestos survey | No | Third-party, before demo |
| Asbestos abatement | No | Licensed abatement contractor |
| Utility disconnect and capping | No | Utility provider, owner-initiated |
| Permits | Varies | Often owner or contractor, by jurisdiction |
| Septic tank pump-out | No | Licensed pumper |
| Septic tank removal or collapse | Sometimes | Ask explicitly |
| Abandoned well plugging | No | Licensed water well driller |
| Backfill of the hole | Usually | — |
| Compacted backfill you can build on | Often not | Ask — different work than filling |
| Final grading and seeding | Rarely | Ask |
| Tree removal around the structure | Sometimes | See land clearing |
| Stump removal after tree work | No | See stump grinding |
The two lines that catch people most often are compacted backfill and slab removal. “Filled” and “filled and compacted to build on” are different jobs, and a slab left in the ground becomes the next contractor’s problem.
Slabs, pools and the things that stay buried
A slab left in place is a decision, not a savings. If nothing is ever going over that footprint, leaving it can be fine. If a structure, a driveway or a septic field is going there, it comes out — and it’s cheaper to take out while the equipment is already on site than to mobilize again later.
A partially filled pool has to drain. Breaking the bottom is what lets water move through instead of collecting in a buried concrete bowl under your yard. A pool filled without the bottom broken becomes a water feature you can’t see.
Buried concrete and buried organics behave differently. Concrete sits. Wood and debris rot and leave voids, and on shrink-swell clay that already moves seasonally, voids under a slab are exactly the problem you’re trying to avoid. Buried debris has to come out of a footprint you’re building on.
Backfill on clay needs the same care as a pad. A hole dumped full of loose material settles. If you’re building there, the backfill is placed in lifts and compacted like any other fill. See excavation.
Common questions
How long does a house teardown take? The machine work on a typical house is a small number of days. The waiting is all in the preparation — utility disconnects, the asbestos survey, permits. Start that early.
Do you haul the debris? Yes, load-out and legal disposal are part of the work, not an afterthought left on your property.
What about asbestos? We don’t do abatement — it’s a licensed specialty and it has to finish before we start. What we will do is tell you when a survey is required. The sequence, and where the survey sits in it, is in the pre-demolition section above.
Can you take out just part of a structure? Yes. Selective demolition ahead of a remodel is regular work.
Do you fill the hole? Yes. Say up front whether you want it filled or filled and compacted to build on — those are different jobs.
Is it better to move an old mobile home or demolish it? Usually demolish and dispose. Moving an old single-wide costs more than the home is worth unless it’s in genuinely good condition, and many aren’t after decades sitting on acreage.
Do I need a permit on county acreage? Often lighter requirements than inside a city, but not automatically none — floodplain and other overlays can apply. It depends on the jurisdiction, so confirm before scheduling.
Can you do the clearing and the pad too? Yes, and as one project it’s fewer mobilizations. See land clearing and excavation.
If you’re comparing bids, how demolition gets priced covers what a quote should itemize and what commonly gets left out of one.
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