Unbuilding

Salvaging the Architectural Treasures of Unwanted Houses

Bob Falk
Brad Guy Hardcover $30.00

Repair and Renovation of Old Houses DVD-ROM

Discover fascinating details on construction techniques for houses both ancient and of more contemporary vintage, and helpful methods to determine their value or salvagability. Unbuilding covers a variety of projects, from simply dismantling a wall to completely unbuilding an entire house safely, while saving the reusable parts and pieces for another building or purpose. You'll find just how satisfying, fun and economical it can be to reuse old building materials - whether for their original purpose or for decorating.

Bob's Preface
Salvaging building materials started for me at a young age. As the son of a thrifty Depression-era remodeler, my father taught me early on that building materials can live more than one life. If you are not preoccupied with the idea that everything has to be brand new, use a little ingenuity, and aren't afraid of a little work, quality building materials can be salvaged and reused, saving lots of money.

Throughout my youth, it seemed we salvaged nearly everything for remodeling projects and house building. Lumber from an old military barracks, insulation from an old ice-storage locker, excess plumbing, used bricks; the list goes on. While at times the thriftiness seemed to go to the extreme (I had to straighten old nails for use in my preteen building projects), I did learn that one man's trash can be another man's treasure.

Salvaging and reusing were so ingrained by adulthood, I didn't appreciate the "resource conservation" effort my family had been involved in: we were greening the environment by using fewer mined, logged, and drilled resources; we were reducing landfill impact; and we were supporting a local waste-based business by purchasing from the local salvage yard.

You don't have to go to the extreme of reusing old nails to benefit from "building materials reuse." In our resource-rich nation, there's a wealth of high-quality building materials available for salvage. The windows, doors, cabinets, fixtures, lumber, trim, and hardwood flooring that often end up in the landfill can all be easily salvaged and reused; and these items can be of much higher quality than those found in new construction. Long lengths of hardwood flooring, solid wood trim and molding, quarter-sawn wood siding, heart-pine stair treads, walnut newel posts, ornate hardware, stained-glass windows, period lighting, elaborate bracketry and trim, and many other items too numerous to list can be found and reused. Many of these items are vintage and aren't available from any other source.

So, how do you go about harvesting this resource, and do you have the skills necessary? If you don't have your own building to remove, there are thousands of buildings torn down every year in the United States. So, there are plenty of opportunities in nearly every community. Check your local newspaper's want ads or place an ad yourself. You can also call the building department and ask about recent demolition permits. Often, a building owner will talk to you if you can remove the building for less than his demolition cost, can meet his schedule, and aren't a liability threat.

Taking apart a building is not unlike putting one together, only in reverse. In many ways it's easier. No measuring, fitting, or cutting to exact lengths or angles. So, if you have some basic carpentry skills, "unbuilding" and material salvage is very doable. Like construction in general, taking apart a building can be dangerous, so safety is paramount. In this book, we will discuss this unbuilding process, how to remove these materials, and- most important- how to do it safely.

Brad's Preface
I can't say that I grew up salvaging. I was raised in the tropical paradise of the southwest coast of Florida, which back then was a pretty sleepy part of the world, hemmed in between the Gulf of Mexico and the Everglades. In the town where I lived, there were no interstate highways, no malls, one high school, one old downtown movie theater, and a long two-line highway across the seemingly endless Everglades to the big city of Miami. My memories were of the quiet and overwhelming presence of sunlit and lush green nature. I also spent time in my adolescence in North Africa, where, as Anglo-Saxons, we were the intruders in a land of extreme poverty and class disparities. We lived in a walled compound across the street from people living in shelters made from corrugated metal and cardboard. These experiences are what drove me to the field of architecture, with the hope that I might help improve the human environment.

I soon learned that most building destroys rather than rejuvenates nature and does not enliven the spirit. The built environment is a major contributor to the environmental and social problems in the world of today. We face unknown and potentially catastrophic changes resulting from reckless human consumption- global warming, energy shortages, water shortages, even alterations in the human physiology from toxins that have been created and used carelessly. Recovering building materials and reusing them is one small contribution to environmental and social sustainability.

There are many measurable benefits to being resource conservative and following the three Rs of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. I hope that the notion of unbuilding and the words and photos in this book will encourage you to become more aware of the value of both the unique and the everyday materials in our buildings and to consider the pleasure of reclaiming and giving old things new lives.

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