Demolition Contractor in Norwalk, CT

What gets torn down in Norwalk

Norwalk carries about 27,000 residential parcels, and the median house has around 1,570 square feet of living space. That is a modest house on a small lot. Owners who want more room often take the house down and build new rather than add on. The teardown and rebuild pattern shows up on the shoreline sections first.

Plenty of Norwalk jobs are smaller than a house. A detached garage on a city lot or an old shed in the back is common work. That is garage, barn and shed demolition. Underneath there is almost always a slab or a set of footings, which is where concrete removal starts.

South Norwalk and the Wall Street to West Avenue corridor are named redevelopment areas in the city's own plans. Older buildings come down there as those blocks get rebuilt. On tight lots like these, access and dust control drive how the job runs. Commercial buildings and slabs are part of the same picture.

Who issues the demolition permit in Norwalk?

Norwalk's Building Code Enforcement Department oversees demolition projects in the city. The demolition permit comes from the town building official. We tell you what the city will ask for and line the job up around it.

Connecticut adds a few steps before the machines show up. The utilities have to confirm in writing that service has been cut. Each adjoining property owner gets notice by certified mail. A state demolition notification also goes in, and it asks whether a licensed asbestos inspector looked at the building.

Norwalk also has a demolition delay ordinance. After the filing, a written objection can go in within 21 days. It goes to the Chief Building Official and the Norwalk Historical Commission. The only ground is that the building is architecturally or historically significant.

If an objection is filed, the permit can wait up to 120 days. If none is filed, the job moves on the normal schedule. The city sets how that runs, so it is worth checking early on an older Norwalk house.

Flood zones, wetlands and the Norwalk River

The Norwalk River runs down through the city to the harbor. The USGS keeps a gage on it at Winnipauk, where it drains about 33 square miles. Brooks, ponds and even intermittent channels count as watercourses in Connecticut. Work near any of them is regulated.

Norwalk's Conservation Commission acts as the city's inland wetland agency. Its published guide puts the upland review area at 50 feet from the edge of a wetland. It sets 100 feet from the top of the bank of a watercourse.

Grading, filling, excavation and taking out vegetation all count as regulated activities inside those lines. Wetlands here are mapped by soil type, so a dry looking patch of woods can still be one. The city sets the current numbers, so we check before a machine goes on a back lot.

Closer to the water, Norwalk's flood rules take over. The city calls for finished living space at least two feet above the base flood elevation. An elevation certificate comes from a licensed land surveyor. Work near the shoreline can also trigger a coastal site plan review through Planning and Zoning.

Ledge, stone walls and the lots north of the Merritt

North of the Merritt Parkway, Norwalk looks like a different town. Silvermine, Cranbury and West Norwalk have wooded lots, slopes and old fieldstone walls. Route 7 runs north out of the city as Main Avenue, and the parkway crosses it at Exit 39.

The ground across this part of Fairfield County is glacial till over schist and gneiss. Some of it is deep and easy to dig. Some of it is 10 to 20 inches of soil on hard bedrock, the stuff people here call ledge.

A dense hardpan layer sits roughly 20 to 40 inches down in places, and water perches on top of it. That is why a hole can be dry at the top and wet at the bottom. We plan for ledge and wet ground at the estimate.

Excavation on these lots covers foundation holes, backfill and trenching, with clearing and stump work ahead of it. Call Before You Dig is the law in Connecticut, and the call goes in before a machine starts. We come down Route 25 out of Monroe and run west on the Merritt Parkway into Norwalk.