The Green Paradox - Creative Destruction

Posted November 30, 2008 03:01 by Robert

Tags: tear down

Kitchen Before Craigslist 

Kitchen After Craigslist

In the area where we are building our new green home, there just isn’t any land. Unfortunately, if you want to build a new home (even a very efficient one) you need to tear down an old one.  While the house we are taking down was over 50 years old, a part of me really struggled with putting so much material into a landfall which had not served out its intended life expectancy. Not to mention we have to pay to have everything removed and put into the aforementioned landfill.   

Having had great luck with Craigslist in the past for things that I more wanted to get rid of than profit from and given the state of the economy, I decided to see I could get people to come remove stuff from the house at little to no cost. I made a list of the things available and posted it and was immediately inundated with e-mails asking to come see and remove stuff as well as questions about sizes, condition, etc. After taking the first round of people through, I realized that I needed a better system so I took pictures, listed prices for things that I wanted to sell like the deck, cabinets, wood patio doors etc with as much info as I could discern and also listed other stuff that people could take for free. I tried to give preference to those that were interested in taking the most things at one time.  Again the response was tremendous and even though it took a lot of coordination and my time, we were able to save a ton of material from the dump. Some items people took included;

• All kitchen cabinets
• All interior doors
• Wall and recessed light fixtures
• Copper piping
• Electrical wire and panels
• Two vanities and toilets
• One stall shower
• A newer deck (which they took down piece by piece and planned to reassemble)
• Interior wood trim and moldings
• Built-ins
• Hot water radiators
• Hot water heater
• Bulkhead door
• Exterior windows and doors
• Fiberglass insulation
• Garage door
• 3 rooms of hardwood floors  

Many people who came had rental units for low income tenants and needed to save money on repairs, others like the guys who spent two days removing the hardwood floors, really wanted to use something that was re-claimed even if it was twice the effort. What I was most impressed by was how appreciative people were and respectful of the property, even though they knew the house was going to be torn down.  

By the time everyone was done, you would have though the house had already been gutted from the inside so much material had been removed. I did make some money, but honestly I was happier that we had helped recycle usable building materials and to see everything go to good use in addition to saving on disposal costs.  It’s a great strategy that I recommend others try as well even if you are just doing a smaller renovation because you might be able to eliminate a lot of your demo or disposal costs.  A few words of advice though. First, don’t give the address in your posting, because you want to control who comes by the property and when.  I also suggest that you make sure the people sound like they know what they are doing if they are going to be removing things that are difficult or dangerous  and also ask everyone to sign a waiver saying that they hold you harmless for any injuries that they sustain as a result of removing stuff. These steps will help make sure that you don’t incur any liabilities or intended problems from your good intentions.   

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