Decades old hospital

I live a short drive from an old 4 building, multi level hospital that has not been open in decades. It's been vandalized, had all of its windows broken out, homeless have moved in/out etc. If I can work something out with the owner I'd like to excavate some things. Is this something that any of you would try to do if you could? If yes/no, why? It is one of the creepiest places I have ever seen, like a scene from the walking dead minus the dead.
-Alex

By the sounds of it and If its anything like around here (Chicago land area) The homeless and druggies most likely already ripped everything out of there. But who knows...

Lots of copper pipes and wires, brass and stainless steel have probably been stolen, but there are probably some items remaining, such as the structure steel beams, the doors + windows and the frames, beds/chairs/tables/furniture/light fixtures, the kitchen counters + sinks... In my book, the biggest issue would be to get a written legal permission and deal with the liabilities + insurance stuff. That's pretty much a demo type of job. Also, better be sure who the real owner is (think corporate bankruptcy, real estate speculations and corporations that run away from the toxic or problematic sites they owned).

Originally Posted by Guyfromalabama

I live a short drive from an old 4 building, multi level hospital that has not been open in decades. It's been vandalized, had all of its windows broken out, homeless have moved in/out etc. If I can work something out with the owner I'd like to excavate some things. Is this something that any of you would try to do if you could? If yes/no, why? It is one of the creepiest places I have ever seen, like a scene from the walking dead minus the dead.
-Alex

The treasure you seek is to be found in the drainpipes leading from the X-Ray lab.

Originally Posted by alloy2

The treasure you seek is to be found in the drainpipes leading from the X-Ray lab.

Or the M.R.I. Room. some good stuff in there. talk about aluminum and copper man. My hospital demo guy hooked it up last month. but that copper is like paper LOL I got one small portion of a wall pannel and he kept the rest for himself. Ive seen the lead from the x-ray room walls. heavy heavy. even the M.R.I. room door was like 400lbs

Whew ... i can relate. We built an x-ray room addition on to the local health clinic years ago. Lead lined sheetrock and lead lined doors. That material was heavy to work with. Just one piece of lead lined sheetrock was about 170 lbs. (Regular sheetrock was about 50 or 60 lbs.) It took two men and a strong boy to install that stuff !

If theres value within the building, sure. Sounds fun, but maybe that's just my outlook on it

I walked around the buildings for a good 30 minutes or so and left shortly after I heard what sounded like a dog in pain/dying (no idea) coming from high up
inside one of the buildings. A lot of the obvious scrap is missing (ie Al windows busted out, bx cables cut as high as someone could reach), but I can tell that there's a good bit of interesting things still intact. I noticed all the copper fire sprinklers are still there.
I'm mostly interested in any medical machines left behind and (as was mentioned) the leaded drywall surrounding the x-ray rooms and possibly the OR. I emailed the owner and am waiting for a reply.

Originally Posted by Guyfromalabama

I walked around the buildings for a good 30 minutes or so and left shortly after I heard what sounded like a dog in pain/dying (no idea) coming from high up
inside one of the buildings. A lot of the obvious scrap is missing (ie Al windows busted out, bx cables cut as high as someone could reach), but I can tell that there's a good bit of interesting things still intact. I noticed all the copper fire sprinklers are still there.
I'm mostly interested in any medical machines left behind and (as was mentioned) the leaded drywall surrounding the x-ray rooms and possibly the OR. I emailed the owner and am waiting for a reply.

Don't hold your breath waiting on that reply, the owner won't want you dismantling anything inside the building.

I assumed as much but thought it couldn't hurt to ask. As it turns out you're correct, for liability reasons (that I completely understand) he can't give me written permission to enter the buildings, however he did say I could snag some stuff when they actually take it down. So this is a win in my book. The buildings themselves are falling apart in places and have had fires in others, so this is actually much better.