Save Money & Go Green During Your Home Remodel

During our first major home remodeling project, our elderly neighbor Joe would come over to see how things were going. Joe came of age during the Great Depression so occasionally he would stoop down, pick up a nail, and hand it to my husband, silently imploring, “waste not, want not” and reminding us of a time when resources were conserved and every nail was considered valuable.

Today we see giant dumpsters parked outside houses with ongoing remodeling projects, full of waste destined for the landfill. Construction contractors tell us it takes too much time to deconstruct a house piece by piece, salvaging some materials for reuse. Time is money, and the labor required to salvage materials is too expensive to be worth it. But is it really too expensive?

Beginning Phase IV of our current house remodeling effort, I decided to run some numbers on our small scale recycling and reuse effort. In a half a day, all the demolition was done and the 2x4s laid in two unruly piles in the remodel space. I set to work with my gloves, safety glasses, hammer and crowbar and restored to usable condition about 28 pieces of stud length lumber and a few shorter pieces. It took about 2 hours, working fairly leisurely, and you can listen to music or talk during the work. Deeply imbedded nails may be removed using a cat’s paw tool or else marked with a red crayon so the framing carpenter will see them and avoid cutting into them and dulling their saw blade or causing a dangerous kick back. For hard-to-remove and headless nails, like the one picture to the right, put the shaft of the nail tight in the claw and bend it sideways, moving the claw up the shaft as the nail comes out.

So what did I save for my 2 hours of labor? The cost of the studs and the cost of disposal are the two biggest things. I also saved a trip to the store, a trip to the dump, and hauling materials out of the house and back in. I did the right thing for the environment, keeping reusable materials out of the landfill and keeping a 28-stud tree standing in the forest.

At my local home improvement store, standard and better 2×4 studs (96 inches that still need to be cut down to stud length) are roughly $2 each with tax. Tipping fees at the dump are $100 a ton. So my 28 studs would cost about $56 dollars to buy new. The 28 studs and nails weighed about 250 lbs. so besides the trip to the transfer station I save about $12.50 in tipping fees.

In total, I saved over $68, paying me $34 per hour for my work cleaning up the studs. You could even afford to pay your teen or tween $10 an hour to do the work and still come out ahead. So next time you or your contractor think salvaging building materials isn’t worth it, think again.

Number of studs reclaimed: 28
Number of hours spent reclaiming studs: 2
Replacement cost of studs: $56
Tipping fees saved: $12.50
Total savings: $68.50
Hourly wage for reclamation work: $34+
Other savings: trip to store; trip to dump; trees left standing; landfill space; mill work
 

Judi Radloff, Kirkland, WA
Green Irene Eco-Consultant
www.GreenIrene.com/EastsideJudi
judi.eastside@greenirene.com