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Here’s what happens on a lot of Melrose Park renovations: a demo crew opens up a 1952 kitchen, hits asbestos floor tiles or pipe insulation, and the whole job stops. Now you’re coordinating a second contractor, waiting on scheduling, and watching your timeline fall apart. That’s a common scenario in this community, because nearly half the homes in Melrose Park were built before 1950.
When we handle your demolition, that stop never happens. Testing, abatement, and demo are all done in-house, so if something turns up mid-job, it gets handled and the work keeps moving. You don’t manage two separate companies. You don’t get a second invoice from a contractor you’ve never met. One call, one crew, one process from start to finish.
The homes throughout Melrose Park and Cheltenham Township are worth the investment — and a gut renovation done right protects that value. What you get at the end isn’t just cleared space. It’s a clean, safe, compliant job site ready for whatever comes next, with zero regulatory exposure left behind.
We’ve been doing this work across Montgomery County and the greater Philadelphia region for over twenty years. That means mid-century colonials, 1940s twins, pre-war basements — the exact housing stock that lines the streets of Melrose Park. This isn’t a team learning on your job. We’ve been in homes like yours hundreds of times.
The credentials matter here, and not just as a formality. We hold a PA state-issued asbestos contractor license under the Asbestos Accreditation and Certification Act, a Certified Lead Inspector and Risk Assessor designation, and full EPA/HUD compliance — all legally required for the work being done in a community where virtually every home predates 1978. Fully licensed, bonded, and insured covers the rest.
Cheltenham Township has its own permitting process, its own code requirements, and its own timeline expectations. We already know how that system works. You won’t be paying for a learning curve.
It starts with a free estimate. We come out, walk the space, and give you a clear picture of what the job involves — including whether testing for lead or asbestos is warranted. In Melrose Park, where the median construction year is 1954, that answer is almost always yes. The estimate covers the full scope, so there’s no number that changes once the walls come down.
Before any demolition begins, we pull the required permit through Cheltenham Township’s Building and Codes Department. The Township enforces the Uniform Construction Code and requires a demolition permit for this type of work — and construction activity can’t start before 7:30 a.m. under the local noise ordinance. We handle the permit process and schedule accordingly, so you’re not navigating that on your own.
Once the site is cleared and permitted, our crew works through the job systematically — selective demo where precision matters, full gut-out where that’s the scope, with HEPA filtration running throughout any hazardous material work. When it’s done, the space is clean, tested, and ready for the next phase. No debris left behind, no open questions about what was handled and how.
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Demolition in a Melrose Park home isn’t just a physical job — it’s a regulatory one. The EPA’s Lead Renovation, Repair, and Painting Rule applies to virtually every residential project here because virtually every home predates 1978. Pennsylvania’s asbestos licensing law applies the moment asbestos-containing materials are disturbed. We’re built to handle both, which means you’re covered from the first test to the final cleanup without needing to bring in anyone else.
The full scope of what we handle includes interior demolition and gutting, asbestos testing and removal, lead inspection and abatement, mold sampling and remediation, waterproofing, furnace and boiler removal, oil tank removal, appliance disposal, and chemical disposal. For a 1950s home in Cheltenham Township going through a kitchen or bathroom renovation, several of those services often come into play on the same job. Having them all available in-house isn’t a convenience — it’s what keeps the project on track.
We also serve general contractors who need a reliable, licensed sub for gut-out work before build-back begins. If you’re a GC working in the Melrose Park or broader Montgomery County area and need a demolition and abatement team you can hand a scope to and trust, that’s exactly the relationship we’re built for.
If your home was built before 1978 — and in Melrose Park, the odds are extremely high that it was — then yes, you should assume both are possible until a professional tests and tells you otherwise. The median construction year in Melrose Park is 1954, and close to half of all homes here were built before 1950. That’s exactly the era when asbestos was used in floor tiles, pipe insulation, joint compound, ceiling tiles, and plaster, and when lead-based paint was standard on interior and exterior surfaces.
This doesn’t mean your renovation can’t move forward — it means it needs to move forward with the right contractor. Under Pennsylvania law, asbestos abatement requires a state-issued license from the PA Department of Labor and Industry. Under the EPA’s RRP Rule, any contractor working on a pre-1978 home must be lead-safe certified. We hold both credentials, which means the testing and any required abatement get handled legally and properly before demolition continues.
Yes. Cheltenham Township requires a demolition permit through its Building and Codes Department before any demolition work begins. The Township follows the Uniform Construction Code, and as of January 2026, they’ve adopted the 2021 International Codes issued by the ICC. Permit applications are now submitted through the Township’s online portal, which launched in early 2025 through OpenGov.
The permit process isn’t something you want to navigate on your own while also managing a renovation timeline. We handle the permit filing as part of the job, so you’re not chasing paperwork or wondering whether the work is compliant. One thing worth knowing: Cheltenham Township prohibits construction activity before 7:30 a.m. under its noise ordinance, so project scheduling is built around that from the start. No surprises on day one.
Selective demolition means removing specific elements — a wall, a floor, a ceiling section, a built-in — while leaving the surrounding structure intact. It requires more precision and planning than a full gut, because the goal is to take out exactly what needs to go without disturbing anything that stays. In Melrose Park’s older homes, this often comes up during kitchen or bathroom renovations where a homeowner wants to open a layout without touching load-bearing elements or adjacent rooms.
A full gut-out means stripping a space down to the studs — walls, flooring, ceilings, fixtures, everything — to give a contractor or renovation crew a clean slate to build from. This is common in homes that are being fully renovated after decades without a major update, which describes a significant portion of the 1940s and 1950s housing stock in this community. Either way, the process starts with an assessment of what’s there before anything comes down, because the materials in these homes require testing before demolition begins.
Yes — but only if they hold the right licenses for both. In Pennsylvania, asbestos abatement is a separately licensed trade under the Asbestos Accreditation and Certification Act. A general demolition contractor who isn’t licensed for asbestos work cannot legally disturb asbestos-containing materials, which means they have to stop the job the moment something turns up. That’s a real problem in Melrose Park, where the housing stock almost guarantees that older materials are present.
We’re licensed for both. That means when the demo crew opens a wall or pulls up a 1950s floor and finds something that needs to be addressed, the job doesn’t stop — it gets handled in-house by the same team under the same license. You don’t get handed off to a second contractor, and you don’t lose days waiting on a new scheduling window. The project keeps moving because the full capability is already there.
Interior demolition costs in the Melrose Park area typically range from a few hundred dollars for small selective work up to $5,000–$15,000 or more for a full gut-out of a kitchen, bathroom, or basement, depending on the size of the space and what’s involved. In homes built in the 1940s and 1950s — which covers a large share of the housing stock here — the presence of hazardous materials like asbestos or lead paint is a real factor that affects total cost, because testing and abatement are part of the job, not add-ons you find out about after.
The most important thing to know is that a lower upfront quote from a demo-only contractor can become a significantly higher total cost once they stop work mid-job and you’re calling a separate abatement company. We provide free estimates that cover the full scope from the start, and we’ll beat any legitimate competing estimate. Cash discounts are also available. The number you get upfront is the number you can actually plan around.
Cash payments reduce administrative overhead — no processing fees, no payment delays, simpler bookkeeping on both sides. We pass that savings directly to the customer in the form of a discount. It’s a straightforward exchange that works well for homeowners who prefer to pay that way, and it’s one of several ways we keep costs reasonable without cutting corners on the work itself.
For homeowners in Melrose Park who are managing a larger renovation budget across multiple contractors and trades, every dollar of savings on the demo phase matters. The cash discount isn’t a gimmick — it’s just an honest acknowledgment that certain payment methods cost less to process, and that savings belongs to you, not to overhead. If you’re getting a free estimate and want to ask about cash pricing at the same time, that’s a completely normal part of the conversation.
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