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Ambler is one of the most historically layered communities in Montgomery County — and that’s not just a compliment. It’s a heads-up. The homes along Mattison Avenue, Rosemary Avenue, and Lemon Street weren’t built by just any developer. Keasbey & Mattison, the asbestos manufacturer that put Ambler on the map, constructed over 400 of them. That means when you start pulling walls in a pre-1954 Ambler home, there’s a real chance you’re dealing with more than drywall.
The problem with most demolition contractors isn’t that they do bad work — it’s that their work stops the moment something unexpected shows up. No asbestos license. No lead certification. No ability to test, contain, or remediate. So the job stalls, you scramble for a second contractor, and your timeline falls apart. We don’t operate that way. Testing, abatement, and demolition all happen under one roof, with licensed supervision from the first walkthrough to the final clean-out.
Whether you’re gutting a kitchen on Church Street, renovating a basement off Butler Avenue, or prepping a commercial space in the Ambler Yards corridor for build-out, the outcome is the same: a clean, cleared, certified site — ready for whatever comes next. No surprises left behind. No liability passed on to you.
We’ve been doing this work in Montgomery County for over twenty years, with deep roots in Ambler specifically. That’s not a marketing number — it’s the reason we’ve seen the inside of enough pre-war Ambler homes to know what’s usually hiding behind the plaster on a Rosemary Avenue rowhouse or underneath the floor tiles in a Mattison Avenue worker cottage.
We’re fully licensed, bonded, and insured. We hold a state-issued Pennsylvania asbestos contractor license — one of the few credentials in the construction trades that Pennsylvania actually requires by law. We’re also a Certified Lead Inspector and Risk Assessor, and we operate in full compliance with EPA and HUD standards. That combination matters in a borough with two EPA Superfund sites on its record and a housing stock with a median construction year of 1954.
When you call us, you’re not getting a crew that figures it out as they go. You’re getting a team that’s already been in these walls — and knows exactly what to do when something turns up.
It starts with a free estimate. You call or reach out, we come to the property, walk through the scope of work, and give you a clear number — no vague ranges, no pressure. If your home is pre-1978, which describes the majority of Ambler’s housing stock, we’ll discuss whether environmental testing makes sense before any demolition begins. In many cases, it does. That’s not us upselling — it’s us making sure the job doesn’t get stopped by a regulatory issue halfway through.
If testing confirms the presence of asbestos, lead, or mold, we handle the abatement in-house before demolition proceeds. This is where having a one-stop contractor actually saves you time and money. There’s no waiting on a second company to clear the site. Our licensed crew contains, removes, and disposes of hazardous materials in compliance with Pennsylvania and EPA requirements — including the NESHAP regulations that govern asbestos removal before any demolition activity.
Once the site is clear and certified, demolition moves forward. Ambler Borough requires permits for interior, partial, and full structural demolition, and we’re familiar with the borough’s code enforcement process. We pull the right permits, work within the borough’s requirements, and leave you with a site that’s clean, documented, and ready for your next contractor or your own next step. From first call to finished job, you have one point of contact the entire way through.
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Most of what we do in Ambler falls into one of two categories: full interior gut-outs and selective or partial demolition. Full gut-outs are common in the borough’s older housing stock — kitchens, bathrooms, basements, and full-floor renovations where everything needs to come out before a remodel can begin. Selective demolition is more common in commercial settings, like the active redevelopment projects along Butler Avenue and South Maple Street, where specific walls, ceilings, or structural elements need to be removed without disturbing the rest of the building.
In either case, the scope of what we bring to the job goes well beyond swinging a sledgehammer. Asbestos testing and removal, lead inspection and encapsulation or removal, mold sampling and remediation, waterproofing, environmental clean-outs, and appliance and debris disposal are all part of our service model. You don’t have to coordinate any of that separately. It’s all handled in-house, with the same licensed team, under the same roof.
For Ambler homeowners specifically, this matters because the borough’s Environmental Advisory Council and active code enforcement office aren’t going to look the other way on improperly handled hazmat disposal. The borough takes compliance seriously — and so do we. Every project we complete in the 19002 ZIP code is fully permitted, properly contained, and documented from start to finish. Cash discounts are available, estimates are always free, and if you’ve already gotten a quote from another contractor, we’ll beat it.
Yes — Ambler Borough requires permits for interior demolition, partial demolition, and full structural demolition. The fee for a full demolition permit starts at $125 plus $0.10 per square foot. Interior and partial demolition permits are separate line items on the borough’s fee schedule. You can reach the borough’s Code Department directly at 215-646-1000, ext. 112.
This isn’t a formality you can skip. Ambler has an active code enforcement office, and unpermitted demolition work — especially in a borough with a historic commercial district and an engaged preservation community — can create real problems at the point of resale. If you’re planning to sell after renovating, the borough’s Resale Use and Occupancy process will surface any unpermitted work. We handle the permit process as part of the job, so you’re not left figuring that out on your own.
It’s a legitimate question — and in Ambler specifically, it’s one worth taking seriously. Keasbey & Mattison, the asbestos manufacturing company that built much of the borough’s residential housing stock in the late 1800s and early 1900s, operated in Ambler for roughly six decades. The company built over 400 homes for their employees along streets like Mattison Avenue, Rosemary Avenue, Lemon Street, and Orange Avenue. Many of those homes are still standing and occupied today.
That doesn’t mean every Ambler home is contaminated. The EPA completed its cleanup of the Ambler Asbestos Piles Superfund Site in 1993. But asbestos-containing materials — insulation, floor tiles, ceiling tiles, pipe wrap, joint compound — were routinely used in residential construction well into the 1970s, and homes built before 1978 carry a meaningful probability of containing them somewhere. The only way to know for sure is to test. We can handle that testing before any demolition work begins, which protects you legally and keeps the project moving if something does turn up.
Under federal NESHAP regulations, regulated asbestos-containing materials must be removed by a licensed abatement contractor before any demolition or renovation activity that would disturb them. That’s not optional — it’s federal law. If a demo-only contractor finds asbestos mid-project and they don’t hold a Pennsylvania asbestos contractor license, they have to stop work entirely and bring in a separate abatement company before they can continue.
That’s where having us on the job from the start makes a real difference. Because we hold the state-issued Pennsylvania asbestos contractor license and handle abatement in-house, finding something in the walls doesn’t stop your project. We shift into abatement mode, contain and remove the material in compliance with EPA and state requirements, and then continue with demolition once the site is cleared and certified. One crew, no gap in the timeline, no scrambling for a second contractor. In Ambler’s older housing stock, that kind of continuity isn’t a luxury — it’s the practical difference between a project that finishes on schedule and one that drags on for weeks.
Demolition pricing depends on the scope of work, the size of the space, and what’s found during the pre-demo evaluation. For interior gut-outs — kitchens, bathrooms, full-floor demolition — costs typically range from a few hundred dollars for a single room to several thousand for a full-floor or whole-house gut, depending on square footage and complexity. If hazardous materials are present and need to be abated before demolition proceeds, that adds to the total, but it’s work that has to be done regardless of who does it.
What matters in Ambler specifically is that the cheapest quote isn’t always the one that ends up being cheapest. A demo-only contractor who can’t handle asbestos or lead will stop the job when they find something — and they often find something in pre-1954 Ambler homes. By the time you add the cost of a second contractor, the delay, and the additional mobilization fees, you’ve spent more than you would have with a one-stop contractor from the start. We offer free estimates, cash discounts, and a beat-any-legitimate-quote guarantee. Call (484) 378-2453 to get a number for your specific project.
If your home was built before 1978 — which describes the majority of Ambler’s housing stock, given a median construction year of 1954 — testing before demolition is strongly recommended and in many cases legally required. Under the EPA’s Lead Renovation, Repair, and Painting Rule, contractors working in pre-1978 residential buildings must be EPA lead-safe certified. Under NESHAP, regulated asbestos-containing materials must be identified and removed by a licensed contractor before demolition begins.
Testing before the job starts is the move that protects you. If testing comes back clean, you have documentation that the site was evaluated by a licensed professional before work began — which matters if you’re selling the property later or dealing with the borough’s Use and Occupancy process. If testing finds something, you know about it before the crew shows up, which means the abatement can be scoped, scheduled, and priced without stopping an active job. We handle both the testing and the abatement, so there’s no gap between finding something and dealing with it.
Yes — but only if they hold the right credentials, and most demolition contractors in Ambler do not. Pennsylvania requires asbestos removal contractors to hold a state-issued license under the Pennsylvania Asbestos Accreditation and Certification Act. It’s one of the few construction trades in the state with a mandatory licensing requirement, and it exists specifically because asbestos abatement done incorrectly creates serious health and legal liability. Many demolition contractors that show up in Ambler search results don’t advertise environmental or abatement capabilities.
We hold the Pennsylvania asbestos contractor license, the Certified Lead Inspector and Risk Assessor credential, and operate in full EPA and HUD compliance. That means a single call to us covers the full scope: testing, abatement, demolition, clean-out, and documentation. For a homeowner in Ambler’s 19002 ZIP code dealing with a pre-war home on a tight renovation timeline, that combination isn’t just convenient — it’s the only setup that guarantees the job won’t stop unexpectedly in the middle of your project.
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