A demolition in our neighborhood: they crunch it up and send it all to the landfill. Deconstruction is more time consuming.

We are finding that we can salvage materials for somewhat less than new materials cost, but since the labor to install materials typically cost more than the materials themselves, the savings is not significant. Our plan is to use salvage materials carefully, restricting ourselves to those materials that are easily substituted for new materials.  This involves extra labor on our part to carefully select materials, but as a result of this careful selection we do not anticipate any additional labor costs in using the salvage material, although they are clearly somewhat different from new, and there may be a learning curve. In the future, we envision that you will be able to purchase used building materials at a store, and using them will be commonplace.

The process began on Monday June 9, when they began by removing cabinetry, interior doors and the electric baseboard heaters.  The hardwood flooring was also removed.  Much of the hardwood comes out with very little damage, but many pieces have small amounts of damage, typically to the tongue or groove.  In virtually all cases this damage is not to the visible part, but may make it harder to get the flooring to fit back together right.

Cabinets and doors are removed (left). Re-store employee chipping mortar off bricks (right).  Bob cleaned about sixty (out of over 1200 saved) and it was hard work! Our salvage Brick Pile (below).

On Tuesday, a big crew showed up and all the exterior bricks were removed and the mortar was cleaned off.   Our guess is that about 60-65% of the bricks were saved and the rest were broken either during removal or in the process of cleaning them.  Unfortunately the mortar was still in good shape in some place and those bricks were harder to remove and clean. By the end of the day two dumpsters showed up, one for clean (unfinished) wood and the other for mixed recyclables.  The company brings the co-mingled material back to their plant where it is sorted and recyclables are separated from those that have to go to the landfill.

Wednesday the roof was removed and both the asphalt shingles and the 1x8 wood under it went to the co-mingled dumpster.

Thursday began the messy process of removing the interior walls, which are lath and plaster.  The plaster all goes to the co-mingled dumpster, but much of the lath is clean enough to go into the "clean wood" dumpster.  When the day was over the house looked like it had been hit by a tornado (albeit one that separated materials).

The following Monday continued interior demolition and began taking the structure apart.

On Tuesday the de-construction of the wood frame began in earnest and the house really began to disappear fast. The process is more brutal than you'd expect, and as a result there are a fair number of broken pieces of wood.  Considering that labor is much more expensive than the value of the materials it makes sense.  In spite of all the pounding, prying and tearing, much of the wood comes out whole, although much is also broken.  The higher value materials such as 6x6s are harder to break and are given a better treatment (all of them were salvaged).  Likewise most (or maybe all) of the 2x8 floor joists were salvaged.  The 2x4s didn't fare as well, and all the short pieces as well as the 1x8 sheathing and sub-flooring ended up in the clean wood recycle bin.

	The roof is removed, then the wall board, then finally the studs.

The foundation concrete will be removed by the excavator and recycled, because everyone recycles concrete, due to it being much cheaper than dumping it.  It apparently is not likely that the Portland cement in it will be salvaged, but that it will be crushed and just used as a gravel substitute.

	Taking the walls apart using very big pry bars (left). Removing nails from the unbroken pieces (below).

We're hoping to get information from the recycling company about what they do with the various products, so that if we can't find out what happened to our material, we can guess what its recycle rate was.

Given that most remodeling and demolition projects don't recycle anything, we clearly did really well, since we not only recycled, but we re-used many materials.  Still we could clearly do better, and it is certainly our hope that in the future the economics will make sense to do so.  As we watched all the 1x6 and 1x8 go to the recycle bin, we thought about how they could be planed and used for things like baseboard, stair risers, shelving and even cabinetry, but probably only in a house that whose aesthetic is more of an "organic" look as would commonly be seen in a straw-bale or cob house (as opposed to the very clear grain select wood and very accurate joinery that is more common in custom construction and cabinetry.)  Bob is already thinking about doing another house using much more salvage material. 

Salvage Material Summary

Asphalt (Composition) Roofing
This all went into the co-mingled dumpster.  While we expected this material to be recycled, we later discovered that the recycling contractor (ReNu) does not recycle asphalt. There was approximately 1180SF of roofing.

Lath & plaster walls, Sheetrock, painted woodwork
There is approximately 2900SF of walls.  All of this went in the co-mingled dumpster. 

Bricks
We salvaged 1000 bricks for a patio wall we intend to build in the future (see site design).  In addition, the Re-Store took away a few pallets of bricks for sale in the store.

Structural wood, sheathing & sub floors
All pieces larger than 2x4s were recovered at a very high rate (90%+), but 2x4s were recovered at a much lower rate.  All the sheathing from the roof ended up in the co-mingled bin (because much of it had asphalt or shingles stuck to it).  All the 1x8 wall sheathing ended up in the clean wood bin, as well as the floor sheathing. Apparently there is no market for any 1x material with knots in it. 

Interior items
All cabinets, light fixtures, plumbing fixtures and  Electric baseboard heaters are salvaged for re-use.  The house had quite a number of recent vintage low cost fixtures which appeared to end up in the recycle heap.

Oak flooring
The house had about 600SF of oak flooring of two different ages, one relatively recent and the other probably original.  Both measured out to be very close to a full 3/4" thick, indicating that the floor had never been heavily sanded, and so highly re-useable.  There was about 60sf of hallways, and one room was done almost entirely in short pieces, so normally much of that would end up in the recycle pile, since only longer board tend to sell.  We decided to salvage it all, in the hopes that we could use the hallway short pieces in another hallway, and do one of the lesser used rooms totally in short pieces.  We will probably have to purchase additional flooring since we need more than we have.

Plumbing (copper & galvanized)  and Electrical wire
All of this goes to scrap metal recycling.

Nails - unknown
Interior trim - all was of low value and went to the co-mingled recycle bin.
Exterior trim - salvaged the porch rails and the treated 4x4s inside the columns.  There was no other exterior trim.

Windows
Many were sent to the re-store for sale, but others ended up in the dumpster.  Presumably there is only so much of a market for single pane windows without much character.
Tile - all went to the co-mingled bin, and from there to the landfill.
Vinyl flooring - all went to the co-mingled bin, and from there to the landfill.
Pergo flooring - we believe it will be sold, but are unsure.
Rear Deck 
Bob de-constructed it, and gave it to a neighbor who will use most of it.

Appliances (Refrig, Stove, DW, H/W heater)
We will reuse the Stove & Refrigerator in the ADU (although its unlikely that the refrigerator is energy-star rated, it is less than five years old, so is most likely relatively efficient compared to older models.  The stove is an electric model, also less than five years old.  We sold the Dishwasher, which was also relatively new.

Concrete 
(left for excavation, but recycled)  approx 415 cu ft

Total amount reused  ??
Total amount recycled  ??
Total amount sent to the Landfill ??