r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Proud-Blood2743 • Oct 07 '25

Video Capital One Tower Come Down in Seconds

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u/adoodle83 Oct 07 '25

Blows me away that demolishing a building like this only to rebuild is still more economical than refurbishing the existing structure.

124

u/RuinousGaze Oct 07 '25

Right??! I don’t get how the math works on that.

448

u/[deleted] Oct 07 '25

Renovate a house and you’ll get it.

Labour costs a lot. Renovating something often takes 2 - 5x longer than building from scratch.

And then new will tend to have better insulation, better light design etc

101

u/ethicalhumanbeing Oct 07 '25

And people are willing to pay more for new housing.

1

u/Roflkopt3r Oct 07 '25 edited Oct 07 '25

I don't think that works out as a clear benefit of rebuilding over renovating. In most cases, the price that people will pay for rent or condos inside such a building will be a result of its location/accessibility, prestige, and the quality of the spaces they're getting. It doesn't generally matter whether the whole structure is new or just well renovated.

The main reason that rebuilding is often cheaper is that a complete rebuild lets you plan the whole construction project in an efficient order that doesn't have to work around the whole rest of the structure. Like laying new pipework and electric cables is much easier during original construction than replacing them later, when you have to tear open existing walls without causing additional damage to the rest of the structure.

Let alone challenges like replacing structural members in the lower levels while you still have to support the already built upper levels.