(401) 479-1472
Roberts Construction Company
Roberts Construction Company
Get a Quote(401) 479-1472

Demolition · Scituate, RI

Demolition in Scituate runs on a protocol, not a permit alone.

Take a building down almost anywhere else and the job is machine work plus a disposal ticket. Take one down in a town where most parcels drain to the Scituate Reservoir — drinking water for roughly 60% of Rhode Island — and the job is six controls run in order. Here is the protocol we run on every Scituate teardown, whether the parcel maps inside the watershed or not.

  1. 01Pre-demolition survey & abatement
  2. 02Utility disconnects & Dig Safe
  3. 03Erosion & sediment controls
  4. 04Fluids, fuel & dust management
  5. 05Concrete washout & slab handling
  6. 06Debris segregation & licensed disposal
Price a teardown (401) 479-1472
Demolition contractor in Scituate, RI — Roberts Construction Company excavator taking down a barn
Structure demolition in Scituate, RI — tested, disconnected, then taken down.

Why the formality? Because in Scituate three layers of oversight can touch one teardown: the town’s Building Official and its soil erosion and sediment control ordinance, RIDEM on wetlands, waste, and OWTS closure, and the Providence Water Supply Board wherever the parcel drains toward the reservoir system — the Ponaganset, the Moswansicut, and their feeders. A protocol means none of those reviews finds an improvisation. It’s the demolition-side twin of the watershed-aware excavation we run everywhere in this town.

01

Control

Pre-demolition survey & abatement

Every teardown starts on paper. A licensed inspector surveys the building for asbestos — and in Scituate’s stock of farmhouses and mill-village homes, pre-1980 construction is the norm, so findings are common: cement siding shingles, pipe lagging, 9x9 floor tile, transite roofing on barns. If regulated material turns up, a RIDOH-approved asbestos abatement plan and licensed abatement come before any structural demolition; RIDOH also takes the start-work notification. Lead paint is handled through safe work practice and disposal-side segregation.

Only after abatement clears does the Scituate Building Official’s demolition permit move — and town code lets the official require a performance guarantee that the demolition and cleanup will be completed. We build the schedule around this sequence instead of fighting it.

02

Control

Utility disconnects & Dig Safe

Electric service is disconnected and confirmed dead at the pole or meter before machinery arrives; propane tanks are pumped out and removed by the supplier. Because most Scituate properties run on a private well and an OWTS rather than public utilities, the disconnect list is different from a city teardown: the septic tank is pumped by a licensed hauler and crushed or filled per RIDEM guidance, and the well is capped or preserved for the next build.

A Dig Safe (811) ticket goes in before we grub foundations or pull slabs — even on rural lots, buried well lines, conduit runs to outbuildings, and old farm piping are real, and hitting a live buried service mid-demolition is an avoidable emergency.

03

Control

Erosion & sediment controls

This is the control the watershed cares about most. Before disturbance, we set silt fence downgradient of the work, a stabilized crushed-stone entrance so trucks don’t track mud onto the road, and inlet protection where a culvert or ditch could carry sediment away. Scituate enforces its own soil erosion and sediment control ordinance on top of the watershed overlay — the town reviews this seriously, and so does Providence Water on parcels that drain toward the reservoir or its tributaries.

Controls stay in and maintained until the site is stabilized, not until the building is down. A bare demolition pad shedding silt into a tributary for a season is exactly what this protocol exists to prevent.

04

Control

Fluids, fuel & dust management

Machines fuel and idle in one designated spot, on high ground, away from anything that drains toward a stream — with a spill kit staged at the fueling point, not back at the truck. Hydraulic lines get a visual check each morning because a burst line over wet ground in this town is a reportable problem, not a shrug.

Dust is knocked down with water as the structure comes apart. It keeps the neighbors civil, keeps any residual lead paint from traveling, and keeps fine material from washing off-site with the next rain.

05

Control

Concrete washout & slab handling

Any concrete washing — chutes, buckets, saws — happens in a contained washout, never on open ground. Washwater is high-pH and belongs nowhere near a reservoir tributary.

Foundations and slabs are broken, pulled, and hauled rather than buried. Clean concrete can leave for recycling as processed aggregate; painted or contaminated material rides with the sorted debris stream. If ledge sits tight against the old foundation — common on Scituate’s glacial uplands — we plan the pull so we’re not chasing rock we don’t need to move, and price any true rock removal as its own line.

06

Control

Debris segregation & licensed disposal

Debris leaves the site sorted where practical — clean wood, metal, concrete, and mixed C&D — and goes only to licensed destinations: a RIDEM-licensed C&D processing facility or Rhode Island Resource Recovery’s Central Landfill in Johnston, about twenty minutes east. Abated asbestos travels separately under manifest through the abatement contractor.

Nothing gets buried in the cellar hole and nothing gets burned. On a watershed parcel, a buried debris pile is a groundwater question with your name on it; documented disposal is cheap by comparison, and we keep the tickets.

General guidance — confirm current requirements with RIDOH, RIDEM, Providence Water, and the Town of Scituate Building Official for your specific structure and parcel.

After the last load leaves

A teardown isn’t finished until the ground is stable.

The protocol’s real endpoint is a lot that sheds clean water. That usually means backfilling and compacting the cellar hole, grading the pad to drain away from any future foundation, and seeding or stabilizing bare soil before the controls come out. If the teardown is step one of a bigger plan, we roll straight into site preparation — and where the lot needs it, land clearing, stump removal, and rock removal on the same mobilization, one set of erosion controls covering all of it.

If new buried services follow the teardown, our Scituate underground utilities page covers how water, septic laterals, conduit, and drainage get trenched under the same watershed frame. The full demolition scope, statewide, lives on our demolition services page.

Frequently asked — Scituate demolition

Teardown questions from the watershed town.

What does a demolition permit involve in Scituate?
The permit comes from the Scituate Building Official, and town code allows the official to require a performance guarantee to make sure the demolition — including site cleanup and stabilization — is actually finished. Before the town issues that permit, Rhode Island requires the asbestos question answered: a licensed inspection, and if regulated material is found, a RIDOH-approved abatement plan. We sequence all of it so the permit is ready when the machine is.
Do older Scituate houses really need asbestos abatement before teardown?
They need an inspection; abatement depends on what it finds. Scituate’s housing stock skews old — farmhouses, mill-village homes in Hope and Clayville — and pre-1980 buildings routinely carry asbestos in siding shingles, pipe insulation, and floor tile. If regulated material is present, a licensed abatement contractor removes it under a RIDOH-approved plan before we demolish. Knocking it down with the asbestos inside is illegal in every town, and doubly unwise in a drinking-water watershed.
Can demolition debris be buried or burned on site?
No. Burying construction and demolition debris on a Scituate lot is prohibited, and open burning of demolition material is not allowed. Everything leaves the site — sorted where practical, hauled to a RIDEM-licensed C&D processing facility or the Central Landfill in Johnston. In the watershed, an old buried debris pile is also a real liability at resale, because it eventually shows up in someone’s test pit.
What happens to the well and septic system when a house comes down?
They get decommissioned deliberately, not ignored. The OWTS tank is pumped by a licensed hauler, then crushed or filled per RIDEM guidance; the well is either preserved for the next build or properly capped. In the watershed, an abandoned tank left full is exactly the kind of slow contamination source Providence Water oversight exists to prevent — so we close these out as part of the demolition scope, not as an afterthought.
Does the reservoir watershed make demolition more expensive?
Modestly, and mostly in controls rather than machine time. Silt fence, a stabilized construction entrance, contained concrete washout, and final stabilization are line items we’d run on any careful job — the watershed makes them non-negotiable and slightly heavier. The teardown itself prices like anywhere else in western Rhode Island. Where budgets actually move is abatement, and that depends on the building, not the watershed.
Do you take down barns and outbuildings, not just houses?
Yes — barns, garages, sheds, mobile homes, and fire-damaged structures. Old agricultural buildings get the same pre-demo screening, because barns hide surprises: buried fuel tanks from tractor days, transite (asbestos-cement) roofing, and lead paint on every board. Salvageable timber can be set aside if you want it; the rest is sorted and hauled like any other scope.

Controls 01–06 · run in order · every job

Send us the address and a few photos of the structure. We’ll tell you what the protocol costs on your lot — abatement realities included, no surprises at permit time.

Get an estimate (401) 479-1472

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