Chapter 1: Recycle – Reuse
by Mark Turner, CEO, GreenSpur, Inc.
Taking the home apart shingle by shingle and board by board must be done with care but the benefits of reuse of these materials is what makes the effort well worth it.
"Oh I see you want to take down the home like my father used to do — old school, by hand."
When we first contacted Mike Greene, owner of Tammal Demolition, he told us he could take the existing home down in a few hours and have all the debris removed in just two days. This was good news to our schedule and budget. We then asked him that we also wanted to recycle and reuse most of the material from the existing home. After calling his preferred dumpster provider EAI, Mike said that they would be lucky to recycle or reuse only about 50% of the home — given this technique. We told them we had to do better. Mike responded, "Oh I see you want to take down the home like my father used to do — old school, by hand."
Clearing debris so that it can be reused as aggregate.
Mike was not sure what this would cost or how much better than 50% we could do, but he said its worth a shot. So with a crew of 5 laborers, 5 sledge hammers, and hearty cooler of cold water they took apart the home shingle by shingle and board by board — separating all the materials into their own dumpster. Some of the materials such as roof beams and payers were able to be saved on site for future millwork, ground cover and construction of the new home. It was until after two weeks of labor, when Tammal brought in their "big stick" to remove the masonry shell for future aggregate use. In the end Mike kept track of our cost, which ended being only 10% more than our original budget. The best news, however, when EAI gave us our final report on the amount of debris we were able to recycle and reuse from the home — which came in a little over 97%.
