Banishing the Bulldozer

Kit Boss knew there had to be a better way. The owner of a 100-year-old Santa Barbara home had plans to rebuild his house but hated the idea of all its doors, windows, cabinets, fixtures, and lumber being tossed in the trash.

“It haunts me,” Kit says, “the thought of piles of things being scraped into landfills.” And he had good reason to fret ― the waste generated by building demolition and renovation is what fills 22% of California’s dumps. “My wife and I were committed to being as green as possible,” he says.

Kit was just starting to do his research when he listed his bike for sale on Facebook. The buyer was Aude-Line Dulière, an eco-conscious architect from Belgium, who happens to be a world leader in “deconstruction,” the concept of dismantling buildings to salvage their reusable parts. The two got to talking.

The more Kit learned about deconstruction, the more hopeful he got. Up to 80% of a home’s materials can be salvaged and channeled back into the marketplace. But he worried about the “green premium,” the extra cost often associated with making the sustainable choice. How would he make it pencil? In this case, his concerns were unwarranted. 

When all was said and done, Kit actually spent about 10% less on deconstructing his West Mesa home than he would have if he’d taken a bulldozer to it. The savings came from the tax benefits he received for donating the used materials to a nonprofit organization, which then resold them to the public at a discount.

Yes, Kit concedes, the more delicate process took longer than the traditional way ― a couple of weeks as opposed to a few days. “But construction takes forever anyway,” he says. Workers removed individual nails from the redwood decking before itemizing each board and prepping it for shipping.

Disassembly was completed this winter with the rebuild now in progress. The final inventory of salvaged items also included a six-foot Danish bookcase, two ceramic sinks, copper downspouts, and more than a dozen lighting sconces, window casements, and solid-wood doors.

The new single-story house is where he and his wife will live, Kit says, acknowledging how much second homes and vacation rentals contribute to Santa Barbara’s housing shortage. Honoring the history of the property was also important to them, he explains, and what better way than ensuring pieces of the old house live on.

“We did the right thing, we did the smart thing, and it wasn’t even a sacrifice,” he says. 

Assembling to Disassemble

It takes a village to take a building apart, and Kit connected with a few key people to see the process through. One was local architect Ellen Bildsten, and another was Bay Area–based Ted Reiff, founder of The ReUse People, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing the solid waste stream.

Ellen is among Santa Barbara’s most sought-after architects and is an active member of the Santa Barbara chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Her firm has designed everything from affordable senior housing to a Miramar beach house, as well as a number of commercial and civic projects, including Toad & Co.’s offices and the Louise Lowry Davis Recreation Center. 

As far as Ellen knows, only a handful of deconstruction projects have ever taken place in Santa Barbara. She’d like to see that number grow. “To bring materials back into the construction stream ― that would be huge for our community,” she says. “And it would greatly reduce our carbon footprint.” Salvaging materials from a single house can save over 30 million BTUs of energy, she notes, enough to heat and cool 750 Santa Barbara homes for a year.

Ted and The ReUse People have been banging the deconstruction drum for decades with offices all over the country. Their client list includes thousands of private homeowners, the cities of San Diego and Chicago, among other public agencies, and a couple of celebrities he can’t talk about because of non-disclosure agreements. Since 1993, the organization has diverted more than 400,000 tons of waste.

In all his years, Ted has always saved his clients money. “I’ve never seen a project not worth it,” he says. Although deconstruction typically costs about twice as much as demolition, the tax benefits more than offset the difference. A third-party, IRS-qualified appraiser determines the value of the materials before they’re removed, taking into consideration their age, condition, and so on. “Your mileage may vary,” he explains.

Old-growth lumber used in framing is especially valuable, Ted says, but foundations are often too far gone to save. He’s seen all manner of vintage fixtures and appliances ― even fireplaces ― diverted from the landfill, items that will give their next home the kind of character you can’t buy at IKEA. “Some real treasures,” he says. “But we’re still looking for Jimmy Hoffa.”

The salvaged materials from Kit’s home were trucked to a 40,000-square-foot warehouse operated by The ReUse People in Oakland. Ted says, “It’s almost like a giant thrift store,” where items cost 25% to 50% less than they would at a home supply store or lumberyard. “Local people can come in and save money,” he says. “A lot of money.”

Will Santa Barbara Get on Board?

For all its upsides, deconstruction still hasn’t gone mainstream. One major reason is that demolition is big business — to the tune of $8.7 billion a year in the United States — fueled by a quickening pace of refits and teardowns as construction methods get quicker and cheaper (think glue instead of screws) and structures don’t last as long.

Of the 250,000 single-family homes that are taken down each year, Ted says, only around 2,500 — or 0.01% — use deconstruction. Nevertheless, Ted and his team, along with hundreds of other deconstruction outfits nationwide, continue to spread the word and educate the public.

Ted’s organization also trains and certifies unemployed and disadvantaged workers, providing new opportunities in recent years to more than 500 tradespeople. They’ve taught 70 or so contractors as well, who in turn have created more jobs in the field.

It takes skill to not only remove materials without ruining them, Ted explains, but also catalog, transport, and store items with care. “Taking out is one thing,” he says. “Preserving is another.”

For deconstruction to take root in Santa Barbara, a few things would need to happen. First, The ReUse People or another similar company would need to secure a large facility like the Oakland warehouse — which serves all Bay Area counties — to resell materials. 

Ted suggests one could be established in the city to serve the Central Coast’s tri-counties. Ellen is already brainstorming and scouting potential locations, perhaps by the airport. “Until the infrastructure is in place, we’re only talking in theoretical terms,” she says. But if the right property were to come along, “We’d be happy to open shop,” Ted says. 

The other factor is labor, or rather, the shortage of it. There aren’t enough local hands to carry out the specialty work. Not yet, anyway. Existing teams of solar installers, abatement specialists, and others with home service backgrounds could be fairly quickly brought up to speed, Ted says. 

Lastly, the demand must exist. Ellen is chipping away at that too, working with city officials to incorporate deconstruction in the teardown permitting process. “Simply introducing people to the option,” she says. 

It remains to be seen if the city will adopt any of the mandates that other municipalities have. In 2016, Portland became the first city to require deconstruction of any single-family home built before 1940. Palo Alto requires deconstruction for all its commercial and residential buildings, regardless of age. And Boulder mandates that 75% of buildings by weight be diverted from landfills.

Ellen is hopeful that Santa Barbara will soon follow suit. But she’s not just waiting around for it to happen. “It’s on us as a community to donate or create the resources to make deconstruction a viable option here,” she says. “And I think we can do it.”

For more information on deconstruction, visit thereusepeople.org.