With a growing number of vacant and unlivable properties dominating many neighborhoods, it is starting to look like in the worst cases demolition might be the way to go. However, on research scientist believes that deconstruction is a far better alternative. “Easily 75 percent to 90 percent of a house can be reused or recycled,” says Bob Falk, USDA researcher and co-author of Unbuilding: Salvaging the Architectural Treasures of Unwanted Houses. Falk believes that condemned buildings should be disassembled so that “everything from siding to floor joists” can be re-used, with any truly unusable elements going to recycling[1]. Currently, around 270,000 homes are torn down each year in the United States, and that number is likely to climb in the future. Falk believes that the materials should go to new construction – he suggests Habitat for Humanity – or be resold as piecemeal to recoup some of the loss on the property.
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[1] http://realestate.msn.com/dont-demolish-that-old-house-recycle-it
That’s all well and good, but who is going to provide the labor to tear down all of these houses. Then, there are the usual problems with abandoned houses and buildings. Varmits, rotting wood, disposal of unusable material (which is costly) and the biggie, asbestos removal in older structures. The city of Detroit bulldozed dozens of empty houses down in an effort to reclaim some neighborhoods. Empty buildings and houses often end up being transient quarters, crack houses, etc. etc. The reclamation idea may look good on paper, but there are a host of problems that would have to be addressed making this idea impractical in many, if not most, cases.
Just let groups come in and take what they want for free until a certain date when it will get bulldozed. Free labor.
We did a program similar to what is suggested and we utilized people that were on welfare that could not find employment for whatever reason, we not only used their services but at the same time they were exposed to the building trade, we actually started the program to rehab abandonded properties and once they were they were fixed they would either be sold to low income families at very resonable prices by lending them the monies and stabilizing neighborhoods at the same time generating funds to continue doing it. Lots of these houses were over a 100 year old and the materials used in these houses were materials that cannot be purchased today, most had oak thruout for trimming and flooring so the ones that were to far gone we would carefully remove the salvagable components and sold them in the internet, I would say very succesfully. So in answer to the above, its absolutely possible to recycle abandoned properties and utilize a good portion of the house to put another one together. There is always away.