Building Character with Recycled Woods

by Brian C. Howard
as published in The Green Guide, May/June 2005

You walk into Lynne Edminster's new place in Olympic Valley, and there's a lot to notice. There's the round dining room with the soaring, turreted ceiling. There's the two-story fireplace built from native granite, textured with living lichen. There's the spiral staircase that pulls you up through three stories of Old Tahoe elegance.

When Dave Marsh, the author and music journalist who gave punk rock its name, and his wife, Barbara Carr, renovated their 250-year-old colonial house in Connecticut last year, they used chestnut wood sal- vaged from replaced parts of the house itself as well as from other New England buildings. The result is a beautiful and harmonious blend of mate- rials, says Marsh, who once again finds himself at the forefront of a trend.

Quality lumber is being salvaged from such sources as old buildings, boats and fallen trees. While there are no good statistics, "Anecdotally, we hear that more and more people are using
reclaimed lumber," says Bob Falk, a research engi- neer at the USDA Forest Products Laboratory.

It's high time we started reusing wood, because the United States consumes about one quarter of the world's forest products. One of the largest uses is for home building: Americans break ground on around 1.5 million new homes a year, and the average single-family dwelling requires about 15,000 board feet of lumber, according to the National Association of Home Builders. The U.S. Forest Service has estimated that an average home requires 88 trees, or 3.2 acres of forest.

Many contractors, facing dwindling supplies of vir- gin wood and rising prices, also are discovering that recycled wood-which tends to be a little more expensive--might not be such a tough economic choice when benefits are factored in. Jonathan Orpin, a New York builder, says recycled wood is "three to four times more energy efficient and will last three to four times as long" as standard lumber. Why? Wood that came originally from old-growth trees is of finer grain and higher quality than what's commonly available now. And since it's had time to fully dry, it tends to warp and shrink less than new boards.

HOW TO FIND GOOD OLD WOOD

For the last few years, Rainforest Alliance's SmartWood program has certified salvaged, reclaimed and recycled timber under its Rediscovered Wood label. SmartWood verifies claims about sources, makes sure the wood is collected responsibly and tracks the material through production, providing assurance for consumers. A Forest Stewardship Council reclaimed label is also in the works.

But not all companies using reclaimed wood have embraced certification as yet. "None of the wood we've worked with in the last 14 years has needed certification," says Erika Carpenter of TerraMai.

"The reclaimed wood is usually very obvious and is covered with marks of previous use,"

Bill Callahan, president of Tamalpais NatureWorks, advises consumers to seek recycled wood locally by calling salvage, deconstruction and demolition companies (found in any phone book). "There is so much free stuff out there, and what's being thrown away is often of better quality than what you can buy at Home Depot," he says. Carpenter adds, however, that engineered, pressed or highly finished woods are harder to identify, Since Smartwood's Rediscovered Wood can certify every- thing from pressed wood to driftwood, the label's influence is likelv to arow.

Below are some companies that provide "chain of custody" assurances.

• Mountain Lumber of Virginia crafts floors out of American chestnut from dismantled barns, oak from breweries and railroad cars and heart pine from factories ($2.95/sq.ft.-$30/sq.ft., with big savings if you buy online; mountainlumber.com, 800-445- 2671). A history of each source can be obtained.
• Pennsylvania-based Conklin's Authentic Antique Barnwood (conklinsbarnwood.com, 570-465-3832) provides wood from barns for a wide array of uses.
• Endura Wood Products in Oregon (endurawood. com, 503-233-7090) sells reclaimed lumber, floor- ing, countertops, cutting boards, carts and furni- ture. Spokesperson Lou Ursitti says the company keeps track of as many wood sources as possible and makes the information available.
• Mesmeraldas in Florida (mesmeraldas.com, 772- 770-4739) packs an online store with such gems as reclaimed-wood stools, trunks, small stand-alone cabinets ($159), a two-drawer server ($369) and a cupboard ($498) made from discarded wine barrels (when available).
• From California, TerraMai (terramai.com, 800- 220-9062) offers burgundy-stained redwood from antique wine tanks.
• Tamalpais NatureWorks sells recycled-wood fur- niture either finished or in kits ($96 to about
  $200; tamalpais.com, 41 ~-454-9948). President Bill Callahan says he would be happy to help con- sumers use SmartWood-certified reclaimed lumber or wood from fallen city trees.
• A good all-around place for homeowners, archi- tects and contractors to find materials and assis- tance is the Seattle-based Environmental Home Center (environmentalhomecenter.com, 800-281- 9785), which also offers custom cabinets from the Naturals Collection (neilkelly.com, 503-288-7461) that can be requested in certified reclaimed.
• See the USDA's Directory of Wood Frame Building Deconstruction and Reused Building Materials Companies, 2004 (www.fpl.fs.fed.us/documnts/fplgtr/fpl_gtr150.pdf)