With economics and values changing, building salvage rises

JIM BARGER touches the huge beam, a rough-sawn 8-by-8 that once helped hold up the roof of this old barn. He forces himself to wear gloves.

Otherwise, he'd come away with a handful of splinters, because he can't refrain from caressing the old wood, feeling the grain, searching for what he calls "the treasure" hidden inside.

His title is "builder," but his job today, inside this massive, century-old dairy barn near Arlington, is more like "archaeologist." Clues about the past will help Barger envision a future, a rebirth, for this 24-foot-tall, café-au-lait-colored pillar of old-growth Douglas fir, its feet firmly planted on a floor rotting from years of cow urine and leaks from the roof.

Very likely, the huge timbers in this barn, standing on a serene, grassy hillock above rolling farmland, were milled on the spot from trees dotting the farm. Perhaps, as was the custom in many farm communities, local able-bodied men raised the frame in a day or two.

The flurry of activity that built this imposing structure was called "construction."

It's taken Barger's crew more than two weeks to take the barn apart, board by board. This is "deconstruction."

Afterward, the circle will come complete, if Barger has his way. The timbers will become exposed structural beams, wall studs, floor supports for a new home or two. Barger's Greenleaf Construction specializes in such rebirths, and it's all about inspiration. "I will visualize what this building will look like in its recycled state. It comes to me."

These days, deconstruction is one stop on a reuse spectrum that includes house moving, salvaging and recycling — all aimed at giving boards, beams, lights, bricks and even broken-up concrete new life, instead of death in a landfill.

Approximately 30 percent of landfill space in the U.S. is now crammed with construction and demolition debris, says Jeff McCord of Nickel Bros. House Moving.

In 2007, the equivalent of 30 railroad cars a day moved 640,000 tons of Seattle's waste — say, just to be snarky, comparable to about 208,000 H2 Hummers — to a landfill in Oregon. Nearly 44 percent of that, according to Seattle Public Utilities, was construction and demolition debris.

Proponents of reuse range from politicians and lawmakers, wary of the costs and community pushback inherent in creating yet another landfill, to those who believe the true price of new materials must include the environmental tab from factories, shipping, disposal and other carbon consumption.

"When you demolish a building, you're throwing away trees, throwing away jobs, throwing away money," says Dave Bennink of RE-USE Consulting, a Bellingham-based company that trains construction crews how to deconstruct so materials can be reused.

Proponents also include builders like Barger, enamored of the qualities of tight, straight-grain wood no longer available; architects and builders eager to establish themselves as "green"; homeowners who value original architectural details; and historic-preservation advocates who cherish links with the past.

Culturally, it seems a shift is afoot. Is Barger a harbinger?

"I'm an old-fashioned redneck," he says. "I used to be 'Yahoo! Bring 'er down!' But I can't do it anymore."

The economics still work against whole-scale deconstruction, which requires time and skilled labor. But many see change in the wind even there, as this powerful recession alters many "immutable" equations.

INSIDE THE Earthwise Architectural Salvage store near Seattle's Spokane Street Bridge, Josh Rosenfeld and Emily Alford are carting a well-worn window and frame to the cashier. Their indie-rock record business is moving, and they need a window for an inside office.

It's an aesthetic as well as a lifestyle choice. "Where is it not cool to be recycling?" says Rosenfeld, 35.

Outside, Resha and Stanley Sabre from Beacon Hill load glass blocks onto a wagon. They plan to build up a window well at their home, and these used blocks are a steal.

"I like this place because it's so historic," says Resha, who also participates in freecycle.org, a Yahoo group that emphasizes giving away your stuff. "I find it really joyful — giving somebody something they really want."

Inside Earthwise, old fir flooring and panel doors share space with architectural details like a giant bar back rescued from Pioneer Square and a metal staircase from the former Adriatica restaurant, now a lonely hole in Queen Anne Hill.

Like second-use clothing and consignment stores around the country, which appear to be thriving, second-use building-materials stores are holding their own in a tough economy. Not surprising, since many items can be half the price of new.

At Earthwise, used appliances, typically slow sellers, are flying out the door as people look for deals. The recession has tightened everyone's belts, says owner Kurt Petrauskas, including his.

Recently, Petrauskas considered a Seattle Parks and Recreation offer for cedar logs from a structure slated for deconstruction in Discovery Park. Their 6-foot length wasn't ideal, and storage costs money, but the price was right: free. Then his crew found they couldn't pry them apart.

Such are the calculations — and the mishaps — that frequently occur in his business.

Higher costs to salvage mean he'll have to stick to items like newell posts, which are easy to remove and sell at a premium. If "more money is left on the table," then he'll be able to remove more labor-intensive items or those that sell more slowly. "It's a balancing act."

CARROT OR STICK?

Carrot and stick? Big carrot, little stick? Big stick, little carrot?

That's the dilemma facing officials from Seattle and nearby jurisdictions. Will regulation foster change or depress the economy? Is relying on the market a fool's quest — or the best path to sustainability?

California chose the stick, requiring contractors to recycle 50 percent of construction and demolition materials. But even that statistic is tricky. Much of it is asphalt, brick and concrete, and contractors are only too happy to recycle the heavy stuff, which requires stiff dump fees.

But what about all those 2x4s? What about a 2x4 behind a wall of Sheetrock? And what if it needs nails removed?

"It is hard to make it work when a large percentage of the crew is costing the contractor $40 an hour to salvage or clean dimensional lumber worth only a dollar or two per board," John McFarland, owner of Demolition Man, recently wrote city officials.

"When you deconstruct a house, it's going to cost more money — everybody knows this," says Terry Marcell of Grayhawk Construction, which bids on demolition and deconstruction jobs.

Demolition is "one guy in a machine and a guy spraying water." In a couple of days, they crush up a house and "put it in a can."

Deconstruction, by contrast, could mean seven guys and two weeks.

Using a machine and tossing the stuff into the landfill is cheapest, Marcell says. His formula: "Machines are less, humans are more."

IF YOU'RE NOT fussy about definitions, it isn't much of a stretch to say that recycling began in the caveman days.

Take bones, for example. People and animals die, flesh gets eaten or rots, but bones stick around.

Hmmm. . . . What to do with them? How about making a tool to dig tasty termites? Or maybe a nice engraving, to entice Miss Caveman to come in for a drink?

Lurch forward to, say, 1900. No reason, really, except that's when my father was born and I want to talk about the walls of my childhood home.

My father's family was wealthy, my mother's was not. But both lived through two world wars and had experienced scarcity — coupons, gas rationing, shortages. The walls in our living room were thick, rough-sawn boards from an old barn. Did Dad just like the look, the conceit of being a rough-hewn kinda guy, or were they simply cheaper and easier to get BHD (Before Home Depot)? As a kid, I didn't ask, and now I don't know.

I know I saw my mom washing aluminum foil, over and over. Reusing old glass jars. Scraps of wood from various projects helped heat the house.

Recycle wasn't a word — it was just what you did, what everybody did.

Then came the '50s. For my family, it meant a TV. A dishwasher. For a while, my parents took the train to Detroit every two years, bought a new car and drove it back. There was something patriotic about buying new. It was Made in America.

Gradually, the idea of scarcity faded for my parents and other middle-class people. Goodbye, old stuff, and good riddance. We were living in the land of plenty.

NOW, WE'RE so confused by the streams of money flowing from one utility, tax and government entity to the next that we aren't sure what actually saves money. Or maybe the real question is: If it saves money, who gets it?

If I finally decide to demolish my non-historically-significant flea-trap to build a new, energy-efficient home, and I let a crew from Second Use Building Materials take the old fir flooring and 1930s fixtures, or even the whole house, will my garbage rates go down, or my new home cost less? If I go to the RE Store in Ballard and buy an old-fashioned light fixture, which might cost more than a Big Box store's Chinese-made version, am I saving the planet? Or being taken to the cleaners? How do I sort this out?

Do I have to pay more to do the right thing?

Seattle officials are struggling with the numbers. They've just "deconstructed" their demolition ordinance, which previously required a contractor to have a completed construction permit before demolishing a residential structure.

The intent was good — save housing — but the net effect, as so often happens with regulations, was bad. After months of waiting, contractors weren't inclined to sit around while deconstruction crews salvaged house parts. Time is money, so BOOM! went the old house, good stuff and all.

Now, with an approved "waste diversion" plan, contractors have time to deconstruct, salvage and divert reusable or recyclable materials as they wait for construction approval.

Salvaging is becoming more cost-competitive, says Joel Banslaben, sustainable strategies specialist with Seattle utilities.

Now, everyone wonders: What will it take to make it work on a large scale?

FOR ALL THE players, the economic landscape has changed dramatically over the past half century.

Before the late 1950s, says McFarland of Demolition Man, contractors had to buy houses to deconstruct them. Salvage sales paid for labor and provided the profit. Since then, labor costs, regulations and interest rates have grown, while time to deconstruct and space to store materials have shrunk.

Garrett Farrell, the Seattle Parks and Recreation guy in charge of removing old Navy buildings in Discovery Park, talks about the "old guard." But he sympathizes with them, too. They are running businesses, and while certificates attesting to green building standards are nice, "attaboys don't put fuel in the equipment."

Economic changes, and the need for jobs, may again drastically rejigger calculations.

Bennink at RE-USE works with cities all around the country. In many, jobs fled overseas, leaving abandoned, derelict homes that cities plan to demolish.

Often, officials and others ask for the financial case for what he calls "hybrid deconstruction," a faster man-and-machine combo effort that goes beyond simple salvage of architectural goodies but doesn't take apart the entire house. He tells them:

"If you deconstruct these buildings, you create local jobs. When you're done, you take materials to a local building-materials store. You sell them to local people. When you do that, the city collects sales tax. It's created jobs, put taxes back in (the city's) pocket. The materials are sold at a discount from Home Depot — affordable building materials, going to people who own a home but can't afford to maintain it."

Maybe you make picture frames or bookcases from the wood, adding value. "This is a buy-local, employ-local effort." He might be right: It's worked, to varying degrees, with other commodities — vegetables, microbrews, books.

Northwest Washington is in the forefront of the movement, Bennink says, but even so, saving only a fraction of what it could.

The city of Seattle and King County have already learned many lessons from a host of demonstration projects. Seattle plans to bore into the economics of hybrid deconstruction later this year.

To make it all work, says Kinley Deller, waste-reduction specialist with the county, it must be cost effective for all involved.

Good ideas abound. Design for easy disassembly, like Vulcan's South Lake Union Discovery Center. Maybe low-interest "green construction" loans, assuming interest rates go up again, McFarland offers. Or tax rebates for those who take part in the reuse circle. Raise dump fees, which Seattle is doing. Maybe there are lots of stairways to reuse heaven.

Says Barger, the builder: "It's still a little bit of the Wild West — everybody is trying to figure how to make it work."

Carol M. Ostrom is a Pacific Northwest magazine staff writer. She can be reached at costrom@seattletimes.com. Alan Berner is a Seattle Times staff photographer.