We are moving slowly at the demolition site.  I don't have any construction permits, nor any expectation of having them soon.  Given this, I asked the excavator just to do it on the side whenever he wasn't too busy digging basements.  

He has it torn down just to the concrete component.  He will be segregating the concrete for recycling, and it will need to be quite uncontaminated to make sure he can get a reduced tipping rate.  The basement was made of cinder block, a common technique in the old days of residential building.  The block walls seem to hold up pretty well, this one could have lasted another 50 years.  The house itself was in rough shape, so nobody seems sad to see it gone.