I have demolished an old house, though I did not own it.

You need a demolition license in order to carry out the work at least in my area of Qld. This requires a whole heap of training etc to secure, so unless you intend to go into this line of work, hire someone!

The house I demolished was out in the scrub a bit, so we did not expect visits from council wanting to see our demolition license.

It is quite hard work! You will be moving the entire weight of the house in small bits as you break it down.

A friend wanted the hardwood framing and provided the transport to remove everything afterwards. I got all the timber wall cladding, some softwood framing and internal timber floor and walls.

This was only a small house and sadly the termites got most of the wall cladding which was silky oak. You could easily pay $2500 per cubic metre if you were buying Silky Oak. I got some Hoop Pine and a nice pile of Brown Pine (not available for love nor money!) Woodwork is a hobby of mine so I did pretty well out of the deal. We left the house stumps and the toilet!

An acquantiance told me that in demolishing an old timber house you go ahead about a day for every day you put in. I take this to mean that if you earn say $150 per day you would get $300 worth of timber for each day of demolition.

Cheers