Demolist the old house, demo permit checklist in Newton, MA

You will need to obtain a demo permit from your city hall before you can demolist your house. The checklist are:

1. If you house is older than 50 years old, you will need to go through historical review of your property. If your property is determined to be historical significant, then the historical committee can impose one year delay on your house. Bottom line is that the city can only delay the demo, but they can't stop you demo'ing it forever.

2. You need to send a letter, certified mail with return slip, to all the adjoinning neighbors, notifying them your intention to demo the house and the builder info.

3. You need to perform pest testing (hire professional) -- making sure when your house is demo'ed, the mice (or any pest) don't spread to your neighbors

4. You need to perform (hire professional) Asbestos testing

5. You need to disconnect electricity -- if the electricty comes in your house over the telephone pole, then the disconnect is easy. The electricity company just sends someone over and cut the wire. You need to obtain the disconnect notice from the electricity company (NStar)

6. You need to disconnect Gas -- this is more complicated than electricity.
a. You first call the gas company, they will schedule a few days later and send someone to come to your house to remove the meter, and gas is shut off into your house.
b. After the meter is removed, they will direct you to one responsible person for your area to create a work request to cut off the gas in the street. For our case, it is David Bregoli. It took us a few days to get in touch of him, you could only get to his voice mail, and there is no guarantee he would call back you shortly.
c. You will need to fill in a request form, they will create a work request.
d. The next 2 days after the work request was created, we saw the marks on the ground around the property. (some dig safe is involved)
e. It takes 30-45 days for the crew to come to dig and cut off
f. After the crew cut the street, you need to get a disconnect notice from National Grid.

7. You need to disconnect water and sewer. This is similar to gas disconnect.
a. You first call the city hall, they will schedule a few days later and send someone to remove the water meter
b. After that, you need to cut and cap water and sewer outside your house, and this needs to be vitnessed by city engineer.
         i. Submit a permit to cut and cap water and sewer
         ii. You will be asked to purchase some bond (insurance like stuffs to promise you will fix any sidewalk that may be damaged)
         iii. After you get the permit, you will need to make appointment with city engineer to come and exam the cut and cap
         iv. After the city engineer examined the cut and cap, you can fill the hole back, but leave a long pole to mark the water and cap location. (green for water, blue for sewer)

With all the information above, you can obtain the demo permit same day at city hall -- over the counter review.