DEMOLITION | Gadsden Steam Plant Boiler House and Chimney 

Interesting history of this old girl: Plant Gadsden came online in 1949 consisting of two 69mw, coal fired units. What is interesting is that the plant not only generated electricity for the region, but also supplied steam to be used in the manufacturing process at the adjacent Goodyear plant, an arrangement that continued until the Goodyear plant shut down in 2020. In 2015, the plant was converted from coal to natural gas as it's fuel source. If not for the steam production for Goodyear, this plant would have most likely been retired decades earlier. Think of the thousands of jobs these two plants provided over the years.

I wonder if anyone ever wonders, when they see one of these old coal plants demolished, how much work was done with the electricity it produced over the span of its lifetime? I would bet most people never think about that stuff. Just imagine how many trillions of hours of artificial light was provided....how many nights hundreds of thousands of homes were kept warm. How many hours of production line time in manufacturing facilities. How much water was pumped. How many lives did it save? Just imagine.

It's pretty amazing that those 2 faded green metal buildings ontop of the main boiler house somehow are still intact at the end, like they just enjoyed the ride down to finally be at ground level

Thanks for the video. The main building came down just as planed. Some said the chimney did not fall exactly where it was planned. However it did come down safely and close to the old building. I liked the several angles of the blast you showed.

I keep thinking of all the math involved to achieve such perfection. Awesome to watch.

Really liked the before/after drone footage. Always like to see how well the building fell after the dust as settled.

That chimney didn't fall as planned😮😮

The Loizeaux Family, making the difficult look easy for decades.

This stuff never gets old!!👍

I’m a retired Union Ironworker and smokestack inspector, I enjoyed this.

Your expertise in video production is approaching that of your demolition skills! Great audio, too!

we all remember with fondness watching The Loizeaux Family being featured on Public Television as they prepped and successfully brought down some structure.

What I found amazing was that boat on the river doing two hundred miles an hour ....🤣

Thanks CDI. Great videos.

CDI is simply the best. I’ve been watching them since 1988 with the demolition of the Travelers building in Boston.

Yet another job done to perfection.

CDI - The 🐐of Demolition Contractors.

These guys have WAY too much fun...

That had to be the fastest 10-second countdown on record. Dude really wanted to push the button!

Awesome! You guys are demolition artists!

Did the chimney go where you wanted?

I live fairly close by, and had not heard about any of this! I just happened to find this in the suggested videos on the right side of the page after watching something else. So awesome, thank you guys for posting it!

I love these nicely assembled videos as of late, I really do. Exquisite! 👍🧐 Thanks CDI! 👍🤠

New to the riverside: Boiler House Lofts. Rustic, roomy barn style living with plenty of patina. Newly renovated and recently lowered, they're a bargain at only $3000/month!

It's like watching a skilled surgeon

If Fred Dibnah was still around I'm sure he'd be a fan!

The roof is landing on planned location great job 👍🏻❤️

Beautiful demolition guys!

Fred Dibnah would've done the job for a fraction of the cost. Just an extra pint or two on the side.

Great job!!!!!!!!!!!! I very much enjoyed your video and I gave it a Thumbs Up

The two roof structures just sat down sweet and easy. Pretty.

I worked with a crew of other Millwrights from Mwlu1263 in Atlanta GA and rebuilt the coal crushers in this plant in the early 2000's. A big job. I hate to see the old girl go down.

Nice and clean, Well done

awesome work se well done amazing

Not quite sure how to say this, but there is something reassuring (?) about having work such as this accomplished by a singularly dedicated group who focus on a single service of this type. There something about seeing the uniform outcome and attention to detail that says that confidence in such people is not misplaced....and that specialization needs to be encouraged. Well Done!!

I can almost always tell if it's a shot by CDI.... columns cut then kickers... on tall structures about every 5th floor is prepped. Steel pre-notched and wired with shape charges.... kickers boxed in... love a good blast as much as next guy.... thank you....

Such a beautiful building in its day!

Congratulations on 💯K subscribers! 🎈

Good. Thanks.

Great job 😊😊

Perfekt, wie immer 🧐👍

Awesome job guys.🇺🇲

Hmm, did the chimney missed the spot a bit? Regardless, it's beautiful as always, thank you for sharing!

No shortage of camera angles. Nice job. 👍

I worked in that plant as in intern in 2006.

Love how they document things like this....in case people in the future ever want to know what that piece of lands history was...!!

CDI - a global scarecrow of the demolition industry (i.e. known to be outstanding in their field)

Dust cloud lookin' at the water cannons like, "lol - whatevs."

Cdi try released all your old videos demolishing old structures outside america like compilation or something

love these CDI videos......why does it seem like the stack fell the wrong direction

Good job, but could it be that the chimney didn't quite fall where it was supposed to?

Very nice production. Hauntingly beautiful. Some strange poignnancy about it as well.

I am glad it wasn't the original 110 year old plant from 1913 which was sadly demolished in 1964. These biulding were from 1949.

2:15 What's up with the garden hose spraying water onto a humongous dust cloud? Does that satisfy OSHA?

Video was spellbinding as usual. Especially enjoyed the video footage with the added drone shots. Editing the story added much appreciated shots. Descriptions of various features was appreciated. Were you (hopefully) the company performing the explosions of the bridge section on the container ship Dali? Overall, another great CDI video.

Beautiful 💥💥💥

Lookin down that chimney, all i could think of was, "Mr. Bonnnnd!!!!

EXCELLENT! Esp the footage inside AND more factoids on the jobs.

So hard-core!

2:31 Sounds like some cars got dinged.

Chimney was about 30 degrees off but other than that it was a great blow down ....

How can I miss you if you don't go away?😢

Professional Precise Perfection

I want a house made by the same guy whole made those boilers.

Reminds me of the decommissioning of Umgeni power station in 1992 in New germany Natal. Life moves on.

Great job with the green buildings at the top. Virtually unscathed all the way down. Amazing! 👍 I expected to see all kinds of green metal rubble, thinking what a clean up that will be. Just one question - why not have the chimney fall into the same pile as the plant? Would make for a lesser area to clean up. TIA

I'm kind of wondering why they don't cleave the chimney at the mid-point just as it starts to tip ? Wouldn't it make the top section fall more vertically, instead of gaining all the horizontal momentum ?

You broke it up into a million pieces, and put it in the basement. Nice job containing the boiler house.

Who else would have ridden the coal hopper up top. pretty smooth ride considering. awesome shots.

You gotta do this to building when you see a bunch of spiders 🕷️ in there

They should have left the 300 Ft. Chimney as a Memorial to the Industry and as a Location Marker.

By the looks of it, that 300 ft chimney is not the original, I believe the plant originally had 2 much shorter stacks, as evidenced by what appear to be caps on the boiler house itself, the Richard L Hearn plant in Toronto has similar caps

Making way for a few more Dollar Generals?

Chimney looked to miss the intended landing zone?

The chimney usually collapses on itself. Did someone screw this one up?

Bet you can’t drop that building leaving the two green structures in tact. Hold my beer 😂

@3:16 - it's almost like y'all knew _just_ where to put that barricade! 😂 😎

Up next: The Tropicana in Las Vegas!

I dont think the chimney was supposed to go the way it did.

Was chimney 300' at where it was pointed at,30 seconds into footage?

I wonder what the two sprays of water does? It's far too small for dust mitigation.

Another explosive day for CDI great job, not so sure of the smokestack though.🤔

1:08 "They're about to blow that place up! Let's get the hell outta' here!" 😂 🇺🇸

I bought a car from a guy who used to do this. He drank a lot, and told me he would set up the charges in a black out and not remember blowing up the coal mine. That was in the 70s,. He got sober and a different job. Still wild though.

Have any subscribers heard of Fred Dibnah deceased U.K steeplejack. Famous for demolishing chimneys without using explosives.

That apparently metal headhouse, fared pretty well. Very well built. Okay, im still here. Whats the problem?

For a minute, I thought the porta potties were going to be crushed 😮

I heard its demolition from my house; I live about a mile to the northwest.

I'm a DP who'd love to work on your promotional videos! Demo reel upon request...Great stuff!

Maybe someone can explain why they don't have a complete curtain of water hoses surrounding the blast area to limit the dangerous and toxic dust clouds from entering into the surrounding areas. Especially in this case, being right alongside a river.

Could you release cranes demolition compilation?

RIP Gadsden. Look up Tac Harbor. My old stomping grounds.

Interesting that, from the 3:00 view, the stack hitting the ground did not cause any camera shake.

The caretaker in the top left hand cabin was told to sit in his armchair and grip the sides.

They even timed the blasts so there were two separate demolitions.

super

and no trees were hurt in the process.

1913 - 2024 R.I.P.

WoW

Am I wrong or was the two fire hoses an attempt to control the dust according to regulations? Whatever they were there for didn't seem have much effect on anything. Anybody down wind got blasted with lots of dust.