Toolbox Talk

The Pre-Demolition Engineering Survey

Demolition is the reverse of construction, and it's done to a building that may already be damaged, weakened, or full of hazards nobody documented. That's why OSHA won't let you start swinging until the structure has been studied. Before any employee begins demolition, §1926.850(a) requires an engineering survey by a competent person.

The survey answers one question: how will this building come down, and where could it come down on its own? Get that wrong and floors overload, walls fall the wrong way, or a section collapses while your crew is standing under it.

What the survey has to cover

The competent person walks the structure and evaluates the condition of the framing, floors, and walls, and the possibility of unplanned collapse of any part of it. Any adjacent structure where your people could be exposed gets checked the same way.

The employer must have written evidence that the survey was performed — this is not a verbal walk-through you skip when the schedule is tight.

Condition of framing, floors, and walls — what's load-bearing, what's already deteriorated.
Possibility of unplanned collapse anywhere in the structure.
Adjacent buildings where workers or the public could be hurt.
For structures damaged by fire, flood, explosion, or deterioration, §1926.850(b) requires walls or floors to be shored or braced before work starts.

From survey to demolition plan

The survey feeds the plan: the sequence of removal, what gets braced or shored, where debris can safely land, and which floors can carry equipment or storage. OSHA's default sequence for exterior walls and floors is top-down — demolished story by story so the structure stays stable as it comes apart (§1926.850(j)).

If conditions in the field don't match what the survey assumed — a floor is more rotted than expected, a beam is cracked — stop and get the competent person back out. The plan is only as good as the survey it's built on.

The competent person keeps working

The survey isn't a one-and-done. §1926.859(g) requires continuing inspections by a competent person as the work progresses, to catch weakened or deteriorated floors and walls and loosened material before they fail. No one works where those hazards exist until they're corrected by shoring, bracing, or other effective means.

So the person who made the call up front stays involved. Demolition changes the building by the hour, and the hazard picture changes with it.

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