Are remodelors interested in salvage from tear down?

[eve]

My townhouse and the neighboring townhouse will be demolished by the new owner to make room for his business expansion.

These townhouses were built in 1985. We purchased the townhouse in 1993 and the architect who designed the houses told me they were built using expensive materials. There are, for example, white oak floors (not glued down), marble countertops in bathrooms, solid doors with Baldwin hardware, 2 x 4's made of harder wood than is standard now, 2 seven year old 4 ton 13 seer Carrier A/C units, lots of mirrors and cabinets.

My question is:

Are there contractors who buy and remodel homes who might be interested in making a bid for these materials?

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[TJones]

My townhouse and the neighboring townhouse will be demolished by the new owner to make room for his business expansion.

These townhouses were built in 1985. We purchased the townhouse in 1993 and the architect who designed the houses told me they were built using expensive materials. There are, for example, white oak floors (not glued down), marble countertops in bathrooms, solid doors with Baldwin hardware, 2 x 4's made of harder wood than is standard now, 2 seven year old 4 ton 13 seer Carrier A/C units, lots of mirrors and cabinets.

My question is:

Are there contractors who buy and remodel homes who might be interested in making a bid for these materials?

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Eve, are you looking to sell these materials, or are you just hoping someone will want to recycle them ? If you just want to recycle, put a big sign up in the front of the house saying, FREE building materials, or FREE wood, with a date on the sign showing how long you will allow people to go and take it out of there. You will be amazed at how many contractors will be there. They will salvage the windows, the copper piping, the floors, the beams. I recently saw this happen to an old 40's pillbox here in Austin recently. I have no doubt those people saved a bundle on DEMO, by having people with know how do it for them for FREE.

[cgallagher]

Most demolishion companies will salvage all of the steel beams and copper wiring and piping. They usually pay their employees low wages, but they allow them to collect the metals and take it all to the recycling center. They can get several hundred dollars from the recycling.

Unfortunately yesterdays "top of the line" is now todays "out of date". The city of Houston now requires 14 SEER HVAC units in all new construction. A 13 SEER in 1985 would have been a very nice upgrade at that time.

The wood flooring may have some value, but oak is usually the cheap to buy. So the labor to remove it, refinish, store, and reinstall in a comparable sized dwelling probably exceeds the amount it would cost just to purchase new.

Solid surface countertops are tricky because they are cut to fit only certain sizes. A lot of times, the glue that is used to install them is what causes them to break when they are removed.

Sinks, toilets, tubs, disposals, light fixtures may be the best bet. But we all know the colors and styles that were used in the 80's, so you may have a tough time there also.

Homes built in the 50's and earlier usually have the best "salvagability". They used a lot of Long leaf pine for construction framing back then. Which is now a very sought out material for furniture and flooring. Cast iron tubs are also very desired. If you don't mind the asbestos and lead paint exposure, you can usually salvage a bit more.