Taking the time to carefully deconstruct a home instead of just tearing it down can pay off big. Just ask Mike and Tricia Barry, who prevented tons of waste from ending up in landfills and pocketed a cool $100,000 for their efforts.
The Barrys took the home apart piece by piece and donated the materials to non-profit organizations to be recycled into new homes.
From the Seattle Times, via Earth911:
The double-pane windows were sturdy, Barry says, as were the newer appliances and some of the wood. Surely someone would want them.
Usable wood from the house’s frame was stacked on pallets, while damaged wood was thrown into a wood chipper to be used as landscaping material or for particle board.
Heating vents and doors were recycled. The nails were taken out one by one and collected with a giant magnet.
After the house was stripped, California Deconstruction and Building Materials ReUse Network picked up the materials and brought them to Habitat for Humanity and other organizations, including Corazón, which helps build homes for people in northern Baja California, Mexico.
“I’d say 80 to 85 percent of the Barry house was reused,” says Gerald Long, of the nonprofit network. “Even the copper plumbing was recycled, the bricks were saved and all the interior fixtures were saved.”
What a responsible, admirable thing to do. Though deconstruction costs more – at $23,000 compared to $14,00 – and takes about two weeks longer than demolition, the tax write-off certainly made it worth the extra time.
And now, needy families in Mexico will have a place to live – made of recycled materials, no less! We’d love to see this trend catch on. Many cities and counties across the U.S. are starting to require recycling from people who want to tear down all or part of their homes, so it may become commonplace before we know it.
Link [Seattle Times] via [Earth911]
