Demolition Debris Removal in Orland Park, IL

Demolition is the one job on this site where where you are standing changes what the work costs in permissions, and Orland Park is the clearest illustration of it we have ever written about. The Village of Orland Park is mostly in Cook County and partly in Will, spread across four townships — Orland, Palos and Bremen in Cook, Frankfort in Will — and our own yard is on the Will County side of the line. Most customers in this village are in Cook. Some are not. And the difference between the two is worth several hundred dollars and ten business days on a teardown.

On the Cook County side, here is the stack, and every figure comes from a government that published it. The Village’s own permit fee schedule lists demolition of a building or structure at $95, residential or non-residential, plus $90 per required plumbing, mechanical or electrical inspection for disconnection and capping. The Village’s demolition page then says it in terms: “Cook County Permit must be obtained for entire building and detached garage demolition permits.” Cook County’s Department of Environment and Sustainability charges $300 for the first residential structure and $150 for each additional, or $750 per structure for commercial and residential of five units or more, and says “Applications must be submitted 10 business days before the work start date.” It wants a plat of survey signed and sealed by an Illinois registered surveyor and not more than five years old; a registered demolition contractor for “residential structures above 625 square feet and all properties zoned commercial or industrial”; a notarized affidavit that all electric has been safely disconnected; and a Demolition Debris Diversion Plan demonstrating 70 percent diversion by weight, with residential projects also showing 5 percent diverted for reuse. All of that is Cook County. All of it is dated and sourced, and you should confirm current figures with the county on (312) 603-8200.

Then asbestos, which is the part almost everyone gets wrong because the state and the county give opposite answers. Illinois EPA, which administers the federal NESHAP rule under delegated authority, says: “A privately owned home or an apartment with four or less units is exempt from the regulations unless the building has either had previous use or future planned use as a commercial or public facility.” Cook County says an asbestos abatement permit application “is required for all asbestos projects (residential, commercial, institutional and industrial)”, applied for “at least ten (10) working days before the start of the project”, on a $200 residential filing fee. Both are true at once. The federal exemption is an exemption from the federal rule. It is not an exemption from a Cook County ordinance. Your house can be outside the federal rule and inside the county’s on the same morning.

On the Will County side of the village, we have to tell you something less satisfying, and we would rather do that than guess. Cook County’s demolition permit, its asbestos permit and its 70 percent diversion mandate do not reach there — the diversion ordinance applies by its own terms to “suburban and unincorporated Cook County”. What Will County requires instead, we could not establish. That is not the same sentence as “there is nothing”, and we will not let it become one. If your property is on the Will County side of Orland Park — or in Mokena, New Lenox, Homer Glen, Frankfort or the City of Lockport — call the county and ask before you set a date. Four of the five closest places to our own yard are in a county whose demolition rules we do not know. Saying so is the most useful thing we can do about it.

One local detail on the Village checklist that is not boilerplate and tells you something about this place. Alongside the utility disconnections, the Village requires “Documentation that water has been turned off or that existing wells have been capped, per ILL Department Public Health.” Orland Park moved from well water to Lake Michigan water in 1985, when the village was roughly halfway through its build-out. There really are capped wells under Orland Park, and the demolition checklist still asks about them forty years later. Ring the yard on (708) 928-8633 once you know your dates.

The Demolition Work This Village Produces

Sizing A Demolition Load

Demolition produces two loads that behave completely differently, and the single best decision you can make is to keep them apart. The structure — framing, roof timber, sheathing, drywall, cabinetry, trim, siding — is bulky and light, and it wants a 30 yard, or a 40 yard on a commercial parcel with room to land it. The mineral material — foundation, slab, footings, brick, block, chimney, flatwork — is dense, and it wants a 10 yard loaded in one flat layer, because that material reaches a lawful road payload while a larger box still looks half empty. On an interior demolition, where there is bulk but rarely much rubble, a 20 is often the whole answer. Two things to hold on to. First, if the job is on a residential driveway in Orland Park, the Village’s 768 cubic foot cap — about 28.4 cubic yards, at eight feet maximum above grade — is a live consideration at the 30 and a real obstacle at the 40; read those pages. Second, if the job is in suburban Cook County, running clean separated streams is not just tidier, it is the practical foundation of the 70 percent diversion plan the county will want to see. Ring (708) 928-8633.

Which County You Are In Changes The Answer

There are five governments capable of having an opinion about a demolition in this village, and it is worth knowing which is which before anything comes down. The Village of Orland Park issues the demolition permit — $95 as published, with the disconnection permits alongside it — and holds the checklist: utility disconnection documentation, sanitary sewer disconnection, septic pumped and sealed where applicable, “Documentation that water has been turned off or that existing wells have been capped”, water meter removed and returned to public works, and “Copy of asbestos abatement documentation from county, if applicable.” Applications run through the Village’s Civic Access portal. Cook County is the second, on that side of the line: a DES demolition permit at $300 for a first residential structure, ten business days ahead, with a plat of survey under five years old, a registered demolition contractor above 625 square feet, a notarized electrical affidavit and a Demolition Debris Diversion Plan at 70 percent by weight plus 5 percent reuse for residential — plus a separate $200 asbestos abatement permit required for all projects. Will County is the third, and here we stop: Cook’s rules do not apply and we could not establish what does. Call them. The Orland Fire Protection District is the fourth — a separate unit of government spanning both counties, at 9790 West 151st Street, which says its code is the 2018 International Fire Code with amendments; it, not the Village, answers questions about containers standing against a building, and we do not publish a separation distance. And JULIE is the fifth, because a demolition digs: dial 811, mark the area in white paint, flags or chalk — which JULIE’s own excavator page describes as the law rather than a courtesy — and remember the ticket runs 25 days with an eighteen-inch tolerance zone either side of the marks. As for the ground itself: this village sits on the Valparaiso Morainic System, with the clay-rich Wadsworth Formation more than 125 feet thick at the surface over more than 185 feet of glacial sediment in places, so a cleared lot in a wet week is soft ground and a loaded container on it is a recovery job. Plywood and timber mats go down as standard, and we would rather set the box on the old driveway slab than on the lot.