Green building demolisher?
tealcollarpaulie
| Posted in General Questions on
Is there an environmentally responsible way to demolish a building?
my neighbor, with whom I shared a drive way, recently passed away and his children aren’t optimistic about the prospect of selling the 800sq ft urban bungalow from 1920 on its 1400sq ft lot. ( I mean, I bought one right next door, but whatever.) and they want me to buy it.
I’m not interested in being a landlord so the only use I could think of for it would be to tear it down and merge it with my tiny property….
that seems evil.
is there a way to demolish a building that doesn’t send the materials to a landfill?
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Replies
Paul,
It depends. The high school near me was systematically salvaged. The hardware kept as replacements for other similar buildings, the glu-lam beams reused, all metal recycled, and even the concrete ground down for fill under roads. That said, a lot still went to landfills.
For a typical house near the end of it's life, a good judge of what can be salvaged is to visit a Habitat for Humanity store and see what they can sell on. With diligent and a lot of effort at least the recyclable materials can also be salvaged, but any way you cut it there simply aren't mechanisms to deal with a most of the materials that are there, and they will end up being buried or burnt.
Paul,
Another thought: How far apart are the houses? Could you design an addition that merged them leaving you with one bigger house?
Malcom,
I thought about joining the two buildings as well, but it seemed... I dunno... I bit extra.
The houses are 12’ apart. My neighbor and I used to have conversations from our respective kitchens.
The habitat for humanity thing is smart. I’ll begin there.Thanks
Contact local fire dept.. They may be interested in a practice fire.
I'd recommend against it. My inlaws' house was ~30' from their neighbor's house when it caught on fire. The radiant heat warped all my inlaws' vinyl siding to the point of needing to be replaced and the smoke was so intense they required professional cleaning.
We are in the middle of setting up a live-fire training centre at our Hall - largely because provincial environmental standards don't allow us to burn old houses anymore. It releases too many pollutants.
Paul,
Lots of housing needed in many urban areas. Are you sure the house can't be saved?
Could you buy it and re-sell it? Neighbors of mine did that to control what was done with the property.
Bill
There is a lot to be said for buying the property next door, especially if it is offered to you by a motivated seller before it goes on the market.
Deleted
Fire or DEW.....
I agree with Malcolm that the best option would be building salvage companies, but I’ve only ever seen them operate on two types of structures: large commercial structures with lots of metal, and historical/old structures with old hardwood.
Commercially wire, pipe, valves, electrical switchgear, many things are resold and reused. I try to use used equipment in my designs often to both save money and reduce the need for new equipment. The trouble is that in a residential setting, the labor to salvage the relatively small amount of wire and pipe exceeds the value of the wire and pipe in many cases.
Older houses with hardwood have more value since there is a market for the reclaimed wood.
You might try contacting some estate sale operators in your area and see if they have any ideas along the lines of what you’re trying to do.
Bill
Of course anything can be done, but like most things it comes down to time and money and the fastest lowest cost path is to hall everything off to the landfill.
Finding anyone who wants to buy hundreds used 2x4 that likely to have been trimmed making them shorter than they want. My guess is you are likely would have more labor dollars in each 2x4 than a new one by the time you remove it and pull all the nails. There are places with hot real estate markets and the local governments have required this type of thing because they can and the market will bear the cost.
Before you get excited about buying it at a bargain price get an appraisal. What one or 2 heirs think does not matter if the third thinks the house is worth more. Negotiating with a group of siblings is like herding cats.
Walta
I have had to herd a couple of cats on a kitchen remodel a few years back. They were supposed to be locked up so we could keep an entrance doorway open.
They broke out at Noon and crew spent lunch break chasing after.
Best lunch break i ever had.
Paul,
The house was built in 1920's so there was probably lead paint in the house in a number of materials, in addition to asbestos and lead in the pipes and flashing. Not too many people want that type of material today. I think it would be more a labor of love than any real benefit to you. There's probably some true 2x material there before the time that lumber was s4s, but again, that could be a lot of work. Hopefully, we continue to push for more recyclable materials in homes so that we can use the raw material again rather than sending to the landfill. Good luck on your project. At least you have some distance to your new neighbor on that side. That could be your win.
House deconstruction (both DIY and professional contractors) is an expanding practice in my area, and maybe yours too:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/realestate/deconstruction-can-provide-huge-tax-benefits-for-property-owners/2016/08/24/8f6c5270-62fb-11e6-96c0-37533479f3f5_story.html
https://www.dumpsters.com/blog/intro-to-home-deconstruction
https://www.hometowndemolitioncontractors.com/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-deconstruction
and yes Habitat for Humanity is playing a part in that expansion:
https://re-store.org/deconstructing-a-house-in-five-easy-steps-notes-from-the-field/
>"The house was built in 1920's so there was probably lead paint in the house in a number of materials, in addition to asbestos and lead in the pipes and flashing."
The lead in the plumbing has real value as scrap metal, as does any brass or copper. Iron less so, but something. The poured lead in the joints of cast iron drains is pretty easy to recover.
The quality of the framing lumber in 1920 is generally superior to what's out there today- even the studs have some residual value, but the beams & joists more so.
Unless someone filled the wall cavities and attic with vermiculite the asbestos hazard (if any) is primarily from plastered-on coatings on boiler or pipe insulation, both of which aren't too expensive to get rid of in a deconstruction/demolition. Cleaning out vermiculite from wall cavities without leaving residual contamination in the wood would be the worse-case. Scenario.
Any painted wood or plaster is almost guaranteed to have some lead and would have to be scrapped, but that too is manageable in a deconstruction.
It’s good to see more places doing this. I’d only heard of the wood and window salvagers usually doing any residential salvage work.
I have seen estate sale places sell things like electrical fixtures (which includes things like light switches and fuse boxes). There are collectors for some of that stuff, and the “middle age” stuff like Federal Pacific circuit breakers has real value to service contractors since replacement parts are no longer available, but there is still a lot of the equipment in use out there.
I had not heard of anyone reclaiming lead from old paint. In my commercial work, I recycle tens of thousands of pounds of lead acid batteries every year on scheduled maintenance cycles and the money gained is used to offset the purchase price of the replacement batteries. For anyone doing this, note that there are two prices every year for lead so sometimes it makes sense to time your project for the time of year with the highest expecting prices for the salvaged materials.
Bill
A local residential architect, who we worked with for awhile because she can also act as a general contractor for clients, does do demo reclaiming. She had to work with local demolition and construction companies to get at all the sorting of materials, methods & process, etc. My impression is that going local and knowing the company and/or crew is key. She made comments that some companies just didn't believe or wouldn't bother with it. Hiring some random contractor to demo and asking them to be "green" didn't cut it.
If I was the OP, I'd ask around. BTW: seems odd that so many people are recommending burning the house ... this is GBA afterall.
Justin
Justin,
Neither of the two posters advocating burning the house down have ever demonstrated any interest in green building.
Burning the place is worse than just being “ungreen” — it’s dangerous. A lot of things used in construction give off really nasty toxic fumes when burned. There is also always a risk of the fire spreading. It’s one thing if a house catches on fire by accident, but doing it on purpose as a cheap way to get rid of the place is just wrong.
Bill