Has anyone here sold an old shed (or barn, or house) to a reclaimed lumber company? If so, how was your experience? Would you do it again?
Did the company pay you for the lumber? Did you pay them for the labor? Did you barter the lumber for the labor and not have any money change hands?
We have a reclaim company here in Hawaii. I would imagine that every company does it a bit differently but the one here is paid to tear down the home, and then they haul it away and resell it. Ours is a non-profit, and their rates, both for the tear down and buying reclaimed wood from them, are very reasonable. The tear down process is also a tax write off. Your best bet for info would likely be to contact the reclaim companies in your area.
Yes, we had on old barn that could not be restored. Found a buyer by posting on The Barn Pages website.
We’re in Iowa and the buyer came up from TX for ot (this was big barn, probably that strongly influences value/distance buyers willing to travel). He paid us 1k for it, this was oh about 10-12 yrs ago. Worked out great for us!
Some things we had to turn a blind eye to (that I don’t think we’d do today-we were young and foolish 
)
Crew was probably undocumented
No proof of insurance (doubtful they were ). As we watched them walk around on roof beams 35 ft in the air this became especially worrisome.
Crew slept in our field - we didn’t realize they were until mr hh noticed the truck cab light go on late at night. felt terrible- we would have offered them to bbq or some other comfort. Anyway it was clear these guys were working for peanuts, and wasn’t a great feeling to have supported that.
But in the end the barn was gone and we all survived. Fair amount of cleanup-for this kind of deal, they’re not going to haul away the rotted boards or the little stuff they don’t want.
PS I don’t think that a similar market exists for old houses or sheds, where there is far, far less material with salvage value. With a shed, it’s just not a lot of material to justify mobilizing your equipment. With a house, you can reasonably remove historic doorknobs and good-condition/interesting antique windows, doors, and wood trim. I guess hardwood floors too–but all that stuff will then need refinishing before someone else can use it. There would be high labor cost to avoid lots of breakage.
I cannot imagine a scenario where the value of those materials is enough for contractors to also take the house down on their dime. Landfill tipping fees vary widely, but at $40-50/ton, it’d be $3-5k to landfill the rest of the demolition material. Add the equipment and labor to knock it down, the trucking, etc., and you can see that it’s not going to be a money-making endeavor.
Might make more sense to do the salvage yourself-- pull off those architecturally interesting details and find a buyer to take it as one lot, and then offer the house to the local fire department to use it as a training burn.
I think they have more value as reclaimed wood and beams are very popular. There are TV shows such as barn builders that go buy barns and rebuild them elsewhere. If someone was getting it cheap/free to remove I would want them to leave they area completely clean.
Building salvage has been around for a while now. I dabbled in it in the late 90s early 2000s when it was really popular and competitive.
Still a fair bit of it going on but the best barns/buildings have been pretty much picked over. The value is in the type, quality and age of the materials in the structure. In the east the buyers are looking for big beams of old growth pine, especially heat of pine and if it can still be found chestnut. Chestnut beams command big bucks. This is used to be re-sawed into flooring. The wider the beams the better and how they were milled.
Wide thick siding in good condition will get attention also. Along with some of the structural components. Like loft flooring in decent condition. I don’t think any salvage companies would be much interested in sheds small structures unless they are made of really quality wood.
Some of the barns, building I looked at had some very tasty/appealing wood and other tidbits. But the owners were hallucinating on what they thought it was worth. HALLUCINATING. I think shows like Barn Builders and others of the like that have gone around over the years had a lot to do with this. (a bit of BS goes with these shows) The owners had no idea of what it takes, time, effort, equipment, labor costs to dissemble without making firewood/kindling out of it. Then it has to be sorted, cleaned of nails etc, milled and marketed.
House, architectural salvage is the same. Quality and age of flooring, attic flooring, doors, trim etc dictate the value. 1700s, 1800s early 19th. Old window glass can bring a premium.
Unless the building is a “gem” most will offer little to nothing other than picking it apart and demo the rest. Saves money on paying someone else to do. Dumping fees and hauling is not cheap. The less you have left over the better.
Beware of amateurs they may leave the site a mess and expensive to clean up.
Some local fire departments might be interested in doing a controlled burn for teaching purposes.
Depending on things the cheapest way to get rid of is to burn and bury. Some Fire departments will over see the burning to make sure things don’t get out of control. They may do this for free or a small fee.
There is someone near Ocala who does this - Relics & Rust in Ocklawaha.
I’m in the market for some used (but sound) 2 by planks. Do the demolition places sell what they gather? Or are there places that do sell use lumber?
What I want to do with it is make stall floors.
Prob just going to have to call around-- if you google “reclaimed lumber” all of your hits are going to be for the $$$ interior decoration market. Besides you’re going to want to stay local b/c shipping material like that in from outside your area would add lots o’ cost.
I’d call a few large contractors in your area, ask who does their demo and if they know of anyone that salvages. Could also call the landfill and ask-- some of them have programs to separate useful C&D (construction and demo) materials from the crumbled, non-useful debris, as a way to reduce landfill volume. Might also call your nearest sawmill and see if you could get their off-cuts at a discount.
Unfortunately, you may be better off just getting new lumber. Most demo’s are done with a big backhoe knocking a house in on itself. For them to remove planks by hand in advance, the cost of labor and the impact to their schedule probably doesn’t pencil out (especially when it’s for someone hoping for cheaper recycled wood).
Recycling, for all of its benefits to the environment, has exceedingly thin $ margins.
Hermein - our local Craigs List is full of ads for used lumber for sale/free. Some of it looks great, some very dubious. Might be worth taking a look at your local list.
You can also posted a “wanted” ad on there.
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I’m in the market for some used (but sound) 2 by planks. Do the demolition places sell what they gather? Or are there places that do sell use lumber?[/QUOTE]
This is area specific. As suggested Craig’s list would be a good place to check out.
Some cities, towns may offer recycle centers where people can drop off for free all kinds of stuff. Building materials to kitchen cabinets you name it. The don’t get any money for it. Public service. The proceeds go to running the place and profits to public environment projects.
There maybe some private recycle businesses also.
When I had some property in the foothills outside of Boulder Co there was a great one. Figures it’s Boulder. Anybody that lives or has lived there knows what I mean.
I built a 14 X 24 rustic off grid cabin on my property pretty much completely out of recycled stuff. Pretty much soup to nuts I spent around $800+. Came out great and look fabulous.
Bought a Saint Bernard size doghouse at the Boulder recycle for $25 to put my generator in. Propane kitchen stove, cabinets windows, took 2 french doors turned them sideways for picture windows. A nice wood stove for $50, etc.
Bought most of the framing materials at a private Denver Recycler. The would “package” a big bundle of various size framing lumber together to sell and skid load it on to my trailer. Most of it was very solid and usable. The stuff that wasn’t went into my wood stove for heat and or cooking. Fun project. It was insulated well, got lots of sun and lots of passive solar heating.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone!
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