How To Demolish a House in a Green Way

Green building is a very popular trend; though before you start building, there is often demolition to be done. More and more communities are requiring that the debris from a home's demolition be channeled for recycling. Whether it is a requirement where you live, it is a good practice for keeping unnecessary waste out of the landfills.

The first step can be to salvage materials for reuse in your new building. Things like windows, light fixtures, sinks, toilets, bathtubs, cabinets, heating and cooling equipment, appliances, water heaters, doors, garage door openers, casing and moulding and much more may be ripe for salvage. It will save you money in disposal fees and even more in reduced construction costs. If there is nothing you want for yourself, others might want it. You may be able to have a demolition sale, in which people come in and take from the house what they have a use for. You can charge for the salvaged materials, or just be glad to get the material into the reuse cycle. Another option is to offer the reusable materials to an organization like Habitat for Humanity or a local organization that helps to provide or repair homes for the needy.

Once the most obvious material has been taken out, comes the next level of recycling, extraction of usable building material. This includes things like copper wire and pipes, iron and steel, clean brick, broken concrete, large timbers or beams. This material can be sent to appropriate processors to be put back into use.

Finally, your community may require or at least have the capability to process different forms of construction debris. This usually requires you to sort and deliver the assorted forms of debris to the appropriate dumping station.

Some of these techniques will actually improve your bottom line, some will cost you money. However, we are firm believers in the pay-as-you-go system, and the cost of proper recycling and reuse of materials are part of the cost of construction. Paying for the true cost of your project is simply fair and the right thing to do. Many communities are seeing the truth of this and have begun adopting such policies. It is probably just a matter of time before construction debris recycling is standard everywhere.