Our house is an 1168 square-foot 1.5 story in lovely East Kildonan. We're on the west side of Henderson Highway - lots of trees, standard 50 x 100 lots, front drives (mostly), houses built in the 1940s (mostly), awesome neighbours (period).
The first summer we lived here, I spent a good couple of weeks ripping out the overgrown junipers in the back yard, netting us about 350 square feet of extra space. Plus an old soccer ball.
The second summer we tackled the garage. The original owner of our house was a small man who drove a small car. Naturally, he built himself a small garage.
As you can see from the picture below, an average-sized person had to duck considerably to get into the garage. Our van wouldn't fit inside, so it didn't make sense to keep the thing on the property.
The demolition took a full Saturday. A friend and I did most of it, but my father-in-law helped for a couple of hours. This particular garage was built with 1X6 tongue and groove lumber, which required a fair bit of smashing and prying - plywood or OSB sheeting would've been a lot easier.
Dumpster
I rented a dumpster (also known as a roll-off container or a garbage bin, depending on which section of the Yellow Pages you're looking in) from Simpson's Transfer and Feed (phone number and address are here). The total cost of the rental was in the $350-$400 range, for a 20-foot container. Most of the cost came from drop-off/pick-up fees, fuel surcharges and dumping fees (based on load weight - so keep the concrete out of the bin!). Per-day charges were negligible, from what I remember.
I suggest shopping around - Simpson's Transfer and Feed were the cheapest I could find, and the service was fantastic, but you might find something better.
What foundation?
Once the garage was down and its musty-smelling skeleton was hauled away, all that was left was a thin asphalt pad. A number of back-breaking options were available at this point, but luckily for me (and my back), a neighbour down the street has a contracting business. He happened to be doing an excavation job not far from our house, so he was more than happy to have us split the cost of a backhoe and dumptruck with the other homeowners he was working for.
Normally, he said, these guys "don't leave the yard for less than $1000", meaning we wouldn't get a callback on our measly little job. As it was, we paid about $350 for a complete excavation - it took 45 minutes - and that was the end of the garage demolition.
Here's a shot of the backhoe:
Email me at ericfriesen67[at]gmail.com if you have any questions!
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