Story and Photos by
ESTHER K. SMITH
News staff writer
September 18, 2007

It’s a familiar mantra — “reduce, reuse, recycle” — and one that many of us try to incorporate into our daily lives. The growing field of building deconstruction, or carefully dismantling a building in order to salvage reusable materials, takes that philosophy to a whole new level.

While our reusing and recycling household materials can reduce the amount of garbage we generate, deconstruction does the same thing on a much larger scale. It can save anywhere from 40-80 percent of building debris from going into the nearest landfill.

This was proven recently in Hood River when a Sherman Street home was dismantled as a demonstration project by RE-USE Consulting of Bellingham, Wash., working with local green builder Tom Reid. Approximately 50-60 percent of the material from the house removal was either salvaged or recycled.

About a third of the material — including lumber, flooring, hardware and light and plumbing fixtures — was salvaged for resale. Another third — scrap metal, scrap lumber, landscaping and concrete — was recycled. The other 50-60 percent was sent to the landfill.

Salvaged materials were donated to the Gorge Rebuild-it Center in Hood River. David Skakel, executive director, said that while salvage work has been occurring in the community for some time, it’s been pretty much limited to the “low-hanging fruit,” or easily accessible, non-structural materials such as light fixtures and appliances.

“Deconstruction isn’t new, but it’s pretty new to Hood River,” he said. “We’re very excited about it — we know it can be done because it’s being done all over the country.”

The recent Sherman Street home deconstruction project came about when a local couple decided that it would cost more to remodel and expand their 65-year-old home than to remove it and build new. They didn’t want to see it all trashed, however.

They contacted the Gorge Rebuild-it Center hoping to be referred to someone who could deconstruct the home. Skakel contacted Tom Reid, of Green Home Construction, and together they walked through the home to assess its potential for deconstruction.

Skakel and Reid sent detailed photos of significant features of the building to David Bennick, of RE-USE Consulting, and he confirmed that the house would be a really good candidate.

First, of course, the “low-hanging fruit” that Skakel referred to was removed, such as hardware, light fixtures, and appliances. Then, out came flooring, wood trim, and anything else in the interior that’s salvageable is removed. Finally, the building itself was tackled, using the latest techniques:

RE-USE Consulting has developed a “panelized method” of deconstruction, where whole sections of a roof or wall can be removed with a reach lift — a sort of forklift-meets-cherry-picker contraption — and set aside where crew members can dismantle it relatively quickly using specialized tools.

One tool, which resembles the claw of a hammer on the end of a 6-foot lever, pries nailed wood pieces apart with better chance of preserving them.

The yard is organized into areas of stacked lumber (often large, hard-to-find lengths and sizes from the days of old-growth logging), scrap lumber piles, dumpsters for trash and a pickup for recycled metal (ductwork, electrical conduits, wires, etc.).

The whole process took three or four days, and then the rest of the debris was hauled off to the transfer station at Hood River Garbage Service

Tom Reid said he learned a lot on the project, though he has done plenty of smaller-scale deconstruction prior to remodeling projects. But using the large reach lift was new to him.

“There was a big learning curve to understand the capabilities and limitations of the machinery,” he said. “You can do a lot with them: pick the panels up and tilt, or leave them flat, or tilt them to let stuff fall off. But you need the right size machine for the job.

“You don’t want to overtax the machinery by going too small, but if it’s too big you might not have the maneuverability you need for tighter spaces,” he said. “This is a method that’s been sort of perfected, so that it’s safer, cost-effective and fast.”

Owners who choose deconstruction are given a detailed list of materials that are recovered and their dollar value, so that they can use it as a tax write-off. They also save on landfill “tipping fees,” since there is less trash being dumped.

Not every building is a candidate for the process, however. Those built after the 1960s tend to have more composite materials and adhesives, making them more difficult to take apart and offering fewer salvageable parts.

In the Sherman street deconstruction project, everyone got paid, Skakel said.

“The client gets a reasonable cost — often comparable to demolition — a substantial tax write-off, and frankly, the satisfaction of knowing they did the right thing,” he said. “The contractor gets paid for his time, and we receive a vast amount of material.”

Skakel said that the Gorge Rebuild-it Center hopes to eventually obtain a grant to fund a full-time field representative who can scope out potential deconstruction jobs and create a regular, stable flow of materials.

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For more information visit:

www.rebuildit.org

www.greenhome-construction.com