What has to happen before demo starts in Colorado

Almost nobody schedules a remodel around asbestos testing. They schedule it around the cabinet lead time, the contractor's calendar, and the week the kids are at grandma's. Then somebody mentions the ceiling texture, and a four-day demo becomes a four-week question.

None of that is a surprise if you know the sequence. Here it is, in the order it actually runs in Colorado.

1. Find out how old the building is

This is the first question, not a footnote, because it can end the conversation.

Housing and child-occupied facilities built before 1978 are what the EPA calls target housing, and they're governed by the federal Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule. Under that rule, work that disturbs painted surfaces has to be performed by an EPA Lead-Safe Certified firm using certified renovators and lead-safe work practices.

There's a small-job exception in the rule — the minor repair and maintenance threshold — but it specifically does not apply to demolition of painted surface areas. Demolition is covered work no matter how small the area is. A single pre-1978 doorway's worth of painted trim is enough.

So the honest version: if your house went up before 1978, your interior demo needs a Lead-Safe Certified firm. Frontier Demolition isn't one, which is why we don't take that work and don't advertise it. We'll tell you on the first call and point you toward a firm that holds the certification. That's a worse sales pitch and a better outcome for you.

If the building is 1978 or later, this step is done and you move on.

2. Identify suspect asbestos material

Asbestos is not a pre-1978 question. It shows up in Colorado buildings well into the 1980s and, in some products, later.

The suspects in an interior demo are predictable: sprayed or troweled ceiling texture, drywall joint compound, 9-inch floor tile and black mastic, sheet vinyl flooring and its paper backing, mortar-bed thinset, suspended ceiling tile, pipe and duct insulation, and in commercial buildings, sprayed fireproofing.

Colorado's rules live in Air Quality Control Commission Regulation No. 8, Part B, and the part that matters to you is the trigger level. Below it, the state's abatement requirements don't kick in. At or above it, suspect material has to be inspected before it's disturbed.

• Single-family residential: 32 square feet on surfaces, 50 linear feet on pipes, or the volume equivalent of a 55-gallon drum.
• Everything else (commercial, public, multifamily): 160 square feet on surfaces, 260 linear feet on pipes, or that same 55-gallon drum equivalent.

Thirty-two square feet is smaller than people expect. It's a modest bathroom ceiling. A kitchen's worth of textured drywall clears it easily. If you're doing anything bigger than a single wall, assume you're over the trigger and plan for the inspection.

3. Get the inspection

The inspection has to be done by a Colorado-certified Asbestos Building Inspector. They take bulk samples, send them to a lab, and issue a report saying what's positive and what isn't.

If everything comes back negative, you're clear and demo proceeds normally. Keep the report — some jurisdictions want it with the permit application, and it's the document that protects you if anyone asks later.

If something comes back positive above the trigger, it has to be abated before demolition disturbs it. Abatement in Colorado may only be performed by a state-certified General Abatement Contractor. That is a separate license from a demolition contractor, a remodeler, or a general contractor. Anyone offering to "just scrape the popcorn off" without that certification is offering to break the law with your house as the crime scene.

We coordinate the inspection, hand the abatement to a certified contractor, and mobilize for the non-hazardous demolition once clearance is in hand. We never perform abatement ourselves.

4. If you're demolishing the whole structure, start the clock early

There's a separate rule for full-building demolition, and it catches people.

Demolishing an entire structure in Colorado requires an asbestos inspection and a demolition notification to the state — even when the inspection finds no asbestos at all. And the notification carries a 10-working-day waiting period before work can begin.

Ten working days is two calendar weeks. If nobody filed on day one, the excavator sits. This is the single most common reason a teardown schedule slips, and it's entirely avoidable by filing early.

Interior demolition inside a building that's staying up is a different animal and generally doesn't trigger the full-demolition notification — but the asbestos inspection requirement above still applies.

5. Pull the right permits

Permits are city-level and they genuinely differ across the Front Range. The general pattern:

• Cosmetic work — cabinets, countertops, flooring — is the most commonly exempted scope.
• Drywall removal is frequently not exempt, even where flooring is. This surprises people constantly.
• Removing any wall, bearing or non-bearing, usually requires a permit.
• Disconnecting or removing plumbing, electrical, or mechanical triggers the matching trade permit.
• Anything structural requires a building permit plus an engineer's detail and shoring.
• Commercial and tenant-improvement work is almost always permitted.

We keep the verified rule for each city we work in on its service-area page. Check yours before you assume.

6. Then, and only then, the fun part

Once the age question is answered, the suspect material is tested, the abatement (if any) is cleared, and the permits are in hand, the demolition itself is the straightforward part: protect the paths, contain the dust, kill and cap the systems, and take it out in order.

And then get rid of it — which is its own problem, and the reason our bins are in-house.

None of this is exotic. It's just unfamiliar, and unfamiliar is what makes a schedule blow up. Ask about it in week one. Tell us the building and the year, and we'll tell you exactly which of these apply.