Step 14: Take Out the Crud and Save What You Can

You don’t really know how a house is built until you tear it apart. And when an entire
home, or several rooms, get stripped to framing, it’s a significant phase of the project. It's the moment when natural light pours in, and the open feeling I'm going for begins to feel even more possible. This is when the house has a chance to breathe and, on some projects, Step 14 is when the home can start to air out and begin to come back to life. This is one of my favorite parts of any rehab.

With me, smelly carpet usually gets yanked out in Step 5. However, if it didn’t happen before this demolition step, it’s time to get it pulled. On a house with fire damage, it's nice to get smokey, charred materials out and into the dumpster once and for all during demo. And if there's been a mold issue, that stinks too, and I want all that nastiness gone. The house needs time to air out, and having this odor outside always feels like a big milestone… because it is. Taking out the old and rotten puts the project in the final stretch of Stank Road. And who doesn’t love that?

As you begin to unload on the walls in Step 14, don’t forget about plumbing, electrical, and gas lines that may be hidden behind the drywall and plaster. You may save yourself time and money by preserving these wires and pipes.

In addition, control your sledgehammer and avoid taking out any structural framing in this phase. If you damage or pop out one stud or even two by mistake, that’s no reason for panic, the house isn’t going to fall in on you. Now, when it comes to non-structural walls, like most closets and knee or pony walls, those are fair game… unless you want to keep them. And it’s worth mentioning that there’s no need to turn the lumber into a pile of splinters. This just makes extra cleanup work for you. 

Also, make an effort before to protect significant features or anything special. It's easy to overlook the value of old flooring when it's covered with a thick layer of dust, but give some consideration to covering the floors before you begin bombarding them with debris from eight or ten feet above. Things like a big, heavy light fixture will gouge wood and likely crack tile. This same advice goes for special cabinetry, fixtures, trim and anything else that's in danger of being damaged while you're demoing around it. You don't want to find yourself tearing out items in your home that had value… before you accidentally trashed them.

Step 14 is the time to pull out any other rotten material. As a rule, you'll be deconstructing to the sound, solid stuff; similar to a dentist, dealing with a cavity in a tooth. Although, for you, the decay is just on a much bigger scale. Like the dental team, you need to take out the bad parts and then go a bit further before filling the space back in with new material. For them it’s the filling. For you, it’ll be wood, and probably insulation, drywall, paint, and trim.

 

Haste Makes Waste

Hold off on throwing too much away. You may know right off that a piece of hardware or some other item is technically worthless. Yet, that might not mean it should be trashed during Step 14. If you keep it, you can take it to the store or a supply house to get a replacement. Now you can always grab a picture, but being able to hold the real thing you’re replacing until you have an acceptable substitute in its place is a good way to go.

And take a second to save things you find during the demolition phase; old newspapers, bottles, tools, and other gifts from the home’s past. Set the things aside and give them a look when you have a moment. You may find something you decide to hang on a wall or place on a shelf when you’re finished, or maybe you want to put your discoveries back where you found them before you button things back up. Either way, I’ll encourage you to demo with efficiency, yet not carelessness.     

 

Saving Wood During Demo

From the start of the demolition phase, you should be ready to save material you can reuse. Just like I dive deep on saving old houses and buildings before the bulldozer rolls in to erase their potential, I also find throwing away lumber an avoidable waste of material, time, and money.

You'll invest as many labor hours pulling out nails as you will on the alternative: dragging salvageable lumber to the dumpster, and eventually paying someone to haul it away. That time is ultimately coupled with driving to the store to buy new stuff, loading it, heading back, and getting it to a safe, dry spot on-site. Save material when you can easily reuse it. It makes sense, saves dollars, and yanking out those nails will be a good work-out for your biceps.

 

Salvaging Metals

Copper pipes and wiring are different than lumber. The metal is recyclable, the wood is reusable. Saving the copper puts cash in your pocket, whereas saving the lumber keeps money in your rehabbing budget.

As I mentioned before, if you’re unsure if plumbing and electrical lines are salvageable, leave them as-is within the walls and let the tradespeople make the calls. Yet if it has to come out, or if the pros confirm that it needs replaced, it’ll generate quick cash at your local metal salvage yards. Think twice about tossing copper away; both pipes and wire.

A Bucket of Miscellaneous Copper -
I'm not sure how much this'll get me,
but I'm good with whatever. It's $.

The value of copper and other metals fluctuates with world markets. I've sometimes been surprised about what my salvaged scraps were worth. Once, I stopped by the scrap yard with some miscellaneous metal, expecting to get enough money to cover a few lunches. Besides stripping the outer layer of wiring and setting it aside, I hadn’t done much. Then when I was in the neighborhood, I dropped in for a surprise payoff. I was out of the loop, and rates had spiked. I was handed a check for six times what I was expecting… enough cash for a couple tanks of fuel in my pickup! I left the salvage yard with an enthusiastic: "Really? Thank you!" 

 

Other Salvageable Items  

And finally, you may be replacing the existing fixtures, but someone else might want them. The same goes for appliances, doors, cabinets, trim, or other things you inherited. 

You can sell some of these things yourself, but at the least, you should consider donating them. Beyond charity, it’s another benefit to your budget and schedule. In our area, we’ve got a good number of non-profit building consignment houses. If you don't know about them, they may be nearby, and sometimes they'll even come to you. They’ll give you a receipt that’ll be creditworthy at tax time, plus it's better to pass these usable things along to someone else rather than letting that material take up space in your dumpster—which you pay by the ton to have hauled away to the landfill.

I think demolition is a really fun part of every project. Just be careful, and don't hurt yourself… or someone else.

The Hurricane House before Demolition began
- This is the rotten roof above the Master Bedroom. 

The Hurricane House After Demolition

Hurricane House
There was a lot we could save.  

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