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Green Home Apr 29, 2008
Home Deconstruction Basics
How Structure Deconstruction is Better for the Planet
Deconstruction is one alternative to demolition and land filling. You can use deconstruction if you're remodeling part of a home, or tearing down an entire home. The focus of deconstruction is to salvage materials for reuse and recycle.
Think about it - if you bulldoze a home right over, you lose all possibility of reusing the home's material. Plus in some cases you can ruin something so much that it can't even be recycled anymore. If you deconstruct a home, you basically take it apart in reverse order of how it was built.
According to the Deconstruction Institute:
"Statistics show that the demolition of buildings in the United States produces 124,670,000 tons of debris each year. That’s enough to build a wall about 30 feet high and 30 feet thick around the entire coast of the continental United States (4,993 miles)."
The con is it takes more time (obviously). That said, there are many pros to home deconstruction.
- You salvage fairly obvious items like sinks, fireplaces, windows, and also obscure items like joists, shingles, wood planks, and more. If it’s asbestos free and not drywall it can be reused.
- You save money by reusing or selling items or you can donate the items to a cause. If you donate you can claim it on your taxes – which covers the cost of deconstruction which is a little more than plain old demolishing.
- You’re conserving resources that would need to be remade new.
- You’re keeping items out of landfills.
The Deconstruction Institute offers a handy calculator that figures out what the benefits of home deconstruction are for a home of your size. You enter in your home's square ft. and you get facts based on that size of a home.
We do a lot of demo work or
| mikese | Mar 23rd, 2009We do a lot of demo work or demolition and save and recycle a lot of material from lumber to flooring cabinets etc. It's cheaper to find a contractor who works with us to keep costs down where ever possible on new homes.
Deconstruction Industry Plug - Thanks River Wired!
| Lorenz Schilling | Jun 6th, 2008Thanks, Ms. Chait & RiverWired for doing this piece about the deconstruction alternative to traditional crash & burn demolition.
You brought up one downside to deconstruction; that it takes longer is actually a big obstical this fledgling industry constantly faces.
Homeowners (or businesses) are understandibly focussed on planning their new home or building and are usually unaware of this alternative to traditional demolition. If they do hear about it, often times its in the 11th hour.
At Deconstruction Network, we often get calls from people who ask if we can come perform deconstruction on their home next week and they need the home down by week's end. Some even think the service might be free and that they can take a tax deduction too!
Well...
Needless to say, these folks haven't planned for the up front costs or time involved, even though they can often save money in the long run.
We're trying to make a more concerted effort to make green architects and designers aware of their vital role and responsibility to give their clients a heads up about their choices well in advance. Propert owners should consider the deconstruction option two or three months in advance of a scheduled tear down.
Often architects think this is something that should be handled by the general contractor and haven't considered the issue of timing. Asside from the timing, GCs aren't always as progressive, and even if they are supportive of deconstruction practices, often times they're not hired until homeowners are ready to build and the clock is ticking on the vacant property. Architects hold a very influencial role in the viability and success of deconstruction practices and most don't know it yet.
It's a little frustrating and a bit ironic when the first step is the process of construction is a mear afterthought, when lots of good can come from the resources in old homes and buildings.
Lorenz Schilling
Founder/President
Deconstruction Network