Thursday, September 24, 2015
A New Website Tells You Where To Buy and Sell Salvaged Wood
Architect Magazine | Products, Technology, Wood, Engineered Wood: Lumber and engineered wood is everywhere on the jobsite—both when a building is going up, and when it’s coming down. In a 2008 report, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cited a 1998 figure by the Environmental Protection Agency that the equivalent of roughly 250,000 single-family homes were being demolished annually in the U.S., resulting in more than one billion board feet of usable, structural lumber that could be reclaimed from those projects.
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This is such a great idea. Reclaimed wood is such a great material because it has a lot of history, character, and its usually pretty cheap. I love that there is a big enough community to make this site useful. I am assuming that in most cases general contractors would not be trying to find cheaper used pine as opposed to ordering fresh wood but I am sure there are instances where you need a glulam beam and one just came out of a building that fits your needs. That is how this website will help the construction industry I think. But I think homeowners will take more advantage of this site by using it to find wood that they can add to their house to improve it. I am most excited for the “heavy timber” section because I hope there are some nice timber frame beams for sale. Now I have no current use for giant beams but now that I have thought about it I have a hundred ideas of what I can do with them running through my head.
I just poked around on this website, and I think this is a really interesting way to get this done. The website is not necessarily easy to navigate, and I think it definitely needs some user feedback before it's perfect, but overall it makes sense. I was surprised to see that the function the website seems to aim for is how to drop off salvaged materials instead of purchasing them. I would think that these two would be side by side, but it defaults to the dropoff. I think it's important for the site to improve to be able to sort through where to find specific materials, which it doesn't currently do very well. It really just suggests places that sell reusable materials in your area. I do, however, think this website does a good job about explaining what each material can be used for/is good for. Again, I think the website needs some help, but hopefully this catches on.
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