Building deconstruction—the systematic disassembly of buildings to maximize reuse and recycling—has been around for thousands of years. At some point, however, the combination of better equipment, rising labor expenses and dropping material costs made mechanical demolition of buildings the far more popular choice.
In 1993, I started to explore reversing that trend. With my firm, RE-USE Consulting, I chose to utilize the same equipment used for more typical demolition to assist in our disassembly. We found that we needed a combination of strategies to compete with demolition of an existing building, including recycling as much material as possible because it cost less to get rid of.
Metal recycling was the most obvious choice because metal also became a revenue stream once it was separated from the other materials. In addition to recycling, reuse of materials helped us avoid dump fees while creating a potential revenue stream. When the value of recycled metal was high, it was common to quickly recycle whatever metal we could find in a structure. When prices dropped, we were left looking to replace the value formerly gained through recycling with something else so we could continue to compete with demolition pricing.
There is value to be found in the reuse of building materials. To illustrate the point, you simply have to look at examples of structural steel buildings that are auctioned off for their materials rather than having the owners pay a hefty fee to demolish them. Today, contractors are turning to Web sites like www.planetreuse.com, www.buildingsurplus.com and www.cmdepot.com to help them sell their reclaimed metal materials, quickly exposing their inventory to a large group of potential buyers and getting advice about what their materials might be worth if reused. Decisions about what to salvage are made based on the profitability of those items. Many of our clients are successful in finding buyers prior to the removal of the salvaged materials, thus maximizing the profit on those items by minimizing the time and effort to handle them.
Value Added
Part of the building material reuse/deconstruction industry is what we call value-added work. It is a collection of products and tasks that add value to the materials we are reclaiming. Some of the most popular materials to work with when designing value-added products are various types of metal. Everything from antique door hardware to copper pipe to aluminum siding is incorporated into new products that thrive on the unique character of their component materials.
Many value-added designers mix wood and metal objects to create an industrial look to the furniture and fixtures they create. These reclaimed products frequently sell for more than similar products made from new materials, although it often is hard to find a new product that clearly can be compared to the custom-made, value-added products on the market.
Diverse textures, colors and repeating shapes cause designers to create products based on available salvaged metal objects. For example, shopping carts can be turned into lawn chairs, claw-foot tubs can be turned into loveseats and manhole covers can become table tops. In those examples, the metal items may have deteriorated or become obsolete in some way that prevents their reuse in their original forms, but options still exist.
Reclaimed wood is the most commonly used material in value-added products, but when we combine it with reclaimed metal items we expand the possibilities of how that reclaimed wood can be utilized. In general, we have found that designers using new materials often dream up a product and then source the necessary materials, whereas designers using reclaimed materials will seek out the materials first and then create a product, using the unique character of the materials they find as a guide.
Salvage One, a reclamation and reuse store in Chicago, has many great examples of reuse in its showroom. Current projects include the reuse of old giant boiler doors, organ pipes and many other reclaimed wood and metal objects.
Embodied Energy
Today, companies and builders are trying to find the next new green product and are paying attention to the environmental impacts of what they are producing and purchasing. Embodied energy refers to how much energy was invested in producing and using a particular building material.
Metal materials contain a large amount of embodied energy. Some argue that too much energy is needed to produce them. Because metal components last such a long time and have such a long service life, however, the embodied energy needed to produce the material is spread throughout a long period of time. This decreases its overall impact. When metal components are reused over and over again, each additional lifespan stretches that material’s embodied energy.
This concept will be a major consideration on the Washington, D.C.-based U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating system. The concept already can be found in LEED’s pilot program to incorporate life-cycle assessment (LCA) data into the rating. In our vision of future buildings, one major requirement of a structure is to admit that its lifespan is limited; therefore it should be designed for disassembly or to be taken apart more easily in order for the individual parts to be reused. Metal roofing, siding, structural steel and specialized metal frameworks are examples of products that support this vision.
Finally, we hope that the construction industry will consider embracing the concepts of designing for disassembly and hope that the metal products industry is up to the challenge.
David Bennink is the owner of RE-USE Consulting, Bellingham, Wash., www.reuseconsulting.com. Among other projects, RE-USE Consulting is currently involved in a large-scale deconstruction and building materials reuse training program with the city of Chicago. He can be contacted at re-use@comcast.net.
The Why of Building Deconstruction
By Dave Hampton
The growing deconstruction industry, which practices systematic disassembly of buildings to recover materials for reuse or repurposing, is gaining ground as an alternative to demolition. It is a strategy that requires us to re-imagine our homes, buildings and communities as assets and inspirations, rather than as commodities. The deconstruction industry is unique in meeting the challenges and tremendous opportunities represented by older buildings while creating green-collar jobs and ensuring higher environmental quality in the process.
There are 10 steps that will promote deconstruction and building-materials reuse:
1) Architects and design professionals: Re-title your “demolition” sheets. Your clients and building-code officials need to become familiar with the term “deconstruction.”
2) Add deconstruction literature to your local demolition and permitting offices. Include deconstruction requirements in bidding procurement for municipal projects.
3) Reach out to owners of buildings not covered by construction- and demolition-debris diversion ordinances.
4) Encourage deconstruction instead of demolition by shortening permit times and/or waiving fees.
5) Select a highly visible project slated for demolition. Make it a showcase for deconstruction instead.
6) Develop your local-materials-reuse infrastructure by creating a salvage and materials resale facility.
7) Challenge your municipality to improve ordinances and energy and building codes, as well as reinforce modest density-based zoning. Educate clients, developers, business owners, legislators and students about deconstruction and materials reuse.
8) Resolve the concerns organized labor has with deconstruction.
9) Stop encouraging demolition and cheap landfilling.
10) Design better buildings. They’ll last longer and inspire us to keep, reuse or adapt them.