Demolition Contractor in Highlands, NC

Older houses and second homes in Highlands

Highlands has more than twice as many homes as year-round residents. The 2020 Census counted 1,072 people in town. Census survey estimates put the housing count near 2,450, and about two in three are seasonal or occasional homes.

About three in four homes in town were built before 1990. Nearly one in five dates from before 1960. The state health department recommends an asbestos inspection before any house comes down, whatever its age.

Macon County's code enforcement office handles building inspections on the Macon County side of town. Its demolition permit asks for the asbestos inspection report up front, done by an asbestos inspector accredited by the state. A county inspector checks the site before the tear-down starts and again at the end. The county also wants landfill receipts that show the debris was disposed of properly.

Once the paperwork is in place, our house demolition work begins. The excavators take the house down, and the dump truck hauls it off the lot. Power and gas, propane included, have to be shut off by the providers first, and you arrange those calls. The county's form also asks whether a well or septic tank on the lot will be abandoned or reused.

Town permits before demolition, clearing or grading

Inside town limits, the Town of Highlands has rules of its own on top of the county's. Its development ordinance requires a zoning certificate before any existing building is demolished. For a building project, the town also bars grading, excavating, under-brushing and tree removal until it issues that certificate.

The town runs its own erosion control program inside its limits, too. A land-disturbing permit applies once 3,000 square feet or more is disturbed on slopes under 30 percent. On slopes of 30 percent or more, any land disturbance needs one, whatever its size. The state only requires an erosion plan once more than one acre is disturbed.

Most land in town also sits in a watershed overlay district. There, the town wants a vegetated buffer of 30 or 50 feet along streams and lakes on its watershed map. On a lot with a buffer, the land clearing plan has to account for it. Ask the town's planning and development office what your lot needs before you set a start date.

Stony slopes and heavy rain on the Highlands plateau

NOAA's Highlands weather station sits about 3,850 feet up, on the plateau. Its 1991 to 2020 normals show about 88 inches of precipitation a year. A tenth of an inch or more falls on about 105 days in a normal year.

The federal soil survey maps about two thirds of the town in stony soils or rock outcrop. Edneyville and Chestnut soils cover most of it. About a third of the town is mapped on slopes of 30 percent or more. On that ground, the town's steep slope rules apply to jobs of any size.

Our site development work cuts house pads and driveways into slopes like these. The dig for the foundation follows. Where a cut bank or a pad edge needs holding, retaining walls do the job. Hydroseeding then puts seed and mulch on the bare banks.

On those steeper lots, the town calls for wire-backed silt fence along the downhill edge of any bare ground. It goes in right after tree removal and before any earth is disturbed. Depending on the project, the town inspects the erosion control devices before grading begins.

Roads into Highlands and where the debris goes

Highlands sits about 67 road miles from Murphy, most of it on US 64 by way of Franklin. That is well inside the 100-mile range we work around Murphy. In town, US 64 and NC 28 share part of Main Street.

From downtown, US 64 heads east toward Cashiers as Cashiers Road. NC 28 runs south as Walhalla Road, and NC 106 leaves town as Dillard Road. Our dump truck hauls tear-down debris and cleared brush out over these roads.

Macon County weighs loads at its scale houses and charges disposal by the ton. Its Highlands transfer station charges more per ton than its Franklin landfill. Brush and yard waste go at their own rate, since the landfill turns yard waste away.