Diary Entries
You can read more about David's remodel experience and learn valuable knowledge about green building standards, materials and best practices in his book Green Remodeling.
One Person's Trash is Another's Treasure
The roof of the garage was deconstructed and donated to a non-profit reseller. One of the challenges I set out for myself was to keep the waste from deconstruction and the addition to a minimum. I have served on the board of directors for a local non-profit organization, The Center for Resource Conservation, for several years. In 1995, the group founded a business called ReSource 2000 (now called ReSource Yard) to see used building materials. Builders and remodelers donate these building products from deconstructed buildings or leftover materials. Sometimes when a window order is messed up and the windows are returned, the window supplier donates them to ReSource Yard. I have supported the business and helped it grow to a nearly $500,000 per year enterprise. The combination of being on the board and keeping my trash out of landfills inspired me to deconstruct whatever building materials I could for reuse. The roof was the beginning.
January 1, 2003 - Reducing
We rent a U-haul to empty out the garage in preparation for building. We recycle some of the stuff accumulated over two lifetimes stacked in the garage and put the rest in storage. It feels great to lighten the load — a symbolic beginning to getting rid of the old to make space for the new.
January 2, 2003- Reusing
The 30-year-old siding is T-111 cedar plywood and the roof is cedar shakes — tinder waiting for a match. They reflect an architectural style of the '70s that today are a liability due to the high likelihood of fire in the mountains. Each fall I am grateful to have made it through another dry summer. So, as the roof of the garage is taken apart piece by piece to make way for the second floor we save the shingles as tinder for the wood stove in the winter. The least I can do is use the wood for its best purpose at the late stage of its life.
We deconstruct the plywood for roof sheathing in a similar fashion and resell it at ReSource 2000 (a recycled building materials outlet) since it's still in great shape. (One forgets that 30 years ago they made plywood from big enough tress that there were almost no knots on the faces of the structural grade plywood. Today there are "footballs" — cutouts where the knots use to be — all over the faces of plywood.) We then remove the trusses one at a time and load them onto the truck. By the end of the day we are down to concrete walls and one wood frame wall. It is like the garage got a crewcut and is ready for boot camp.
