Deconstruction/Reconstruction

Introduction

Until about 50 years ago, most people would not have thought of throwing away any item which could still be used. Glass jars, cardboard and wooden boxes, paper, furniture, thread, buttons, and re-straightened nails would all have been saved to be used again.

Our "disposable" society, starting in the late forties and early fifties, has taken us very quickly to a crisis point of both diminishing natural materials and diminishing quality of those remaining materials.

Old buildings are no exception. In the relatively recent past it would have been "unthinkable" to bulldoze a building, consisting of thousands of board feet of lumber, as well as, windows, doors, plumbing, and nails, and transport the material to a landfill.

In addition to the "waste" of valuable building materials, many old buildings contain irreplaceable materials. Wide oak boards, heart pine flooring, and hand hewn chestnut beams are just a few of the "special treasures" which can be found in old buildings, in addition to the good "common" materials of whatever region the building is located in.

I have been involved in the deconstruction of a half a dozen buildings over the past five years. The following presentation provides a checklist/outline for how to find, evaluate and deconstruct old buildings. And a summary of the materials recovered from one deconstruction project.

Finding the Buildings

• Word of Mouth
  
• Newspaper ads, both yours asking for old buildings to deconstruct and others asking for someone to remove
  or demolish a building.
  
• Chance
  

Assessing the Building - Things to Look For and Test For.

• Lead Paint (test interior and exterior painted surfaces separately)
• Asbestos (pipe insulation, siding, shingles, ceiling tiles)
• Insulation (loose fiberglass, rock wool, cellulose, bats)
• Roofing material (asphalt shingles, metal, slate, shake)
• Wall covering (wood, lathe and plaster, drywall)
• Floor coverings (wall to wall carpeting, linoleum)
• wood rot
• insect damage and insects (termites, carpenter ants)
• "stuff" (this is a technical term) in the attic, basement, closets (chemicals, paints, finishes, pesticides,, trash)
• overall structural integrity

"Official" Considerations

• demolition permits
• liability insurance
• contractor's license
• landfill permit
• Arranging to have the electric, gas, water, and sewer mains disconnected

Deconstruction

• tools of the trade (pry bars, ladders, hammers, shovels, brooms, pick up truck, a good back, patience and a mildly warped sense of humor)

Take Her Down Backwards (deconstruct in the reverse order from the way the building was constructed)

• electric and plumbing fixtures
• cabinets
• inner walls
• molding & trim

  wall to wall carpeting (linoleum can stay to protect the flooring until later)

  interior walls

  ceilings

  doors and windows

• roof

  chimney (if it is through the roof)

  roofing

  sheathing boards

  rafters

• siding
• top floor studs
• top floor joists
• lower floor studs
• lower floor joists
• chimney (chimneys need to be evaluated for structural integrity and dismantled accordingly, sometimes the chimney can be pulled down after the building had been deconstructed, other time the chimney will need to be removed in sections along with the building as it is coming down to prevent it from falling on you)
• sills and main beams
• foundation

Return to ARRC Homepage

Most Recently Updated ~ January 15, 2002