Austin Real Estate Becomes Eco-Friendly With ‘Unbuilds’
In today’s ‘green conscious’ society, not only is there a moral obligation not to destroy and discard, but to recycle and reuse.
The eco-friendly ‘unbuild’ has now become an option to the traditional ‘tear-down’ of Austin real estate. According to a Wallstreet Journal article, an unbuilt house can be carefully disassembled, piece by piece, and the parts used for a new house and/or donated for reuse elsewhere. Whatever is donated can be deducted from income tax.
‘Unbuilding’ an Austin home may be the right thing to do for many reasons, but saving time and money is not top of the list. It will take longer to ‘unbuild’, but at least a couple of weeks and may end up being more expensive in the long run, even after any tax deductions. But, other benefits are the reuse of materials such as beautiful aged brick from fireplaces, stone foundations, custom woodwork, decorative tile or antique fixtures and working appliances.
For the past few years, there’s been an explosion across the U.S. of rebuilding centers – non-profit companies that take donations of house parts and resell them at a huge discount to the public. According to the Pittsburgh-based Building Materials Reuse Association, the number of stores that sell reused building materials in the U.S. numbered about 1,200 as of 2006, with average annual revenues of $340,000 — up 45% — from three years earlier. A survey by Pennsylvania State University shows that more than half of these stores have operated for less than five years.
Here are list Austin companies belonging to the Association.
If you have a property that needs to be ‘unbuilt’ or ‘torn-down’, but not sure you want to tackle this yourself, Copeland Group Realty buys Austin real estate tear downs, as well as, Austin homes that need to be moved.
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Tags: Austin Real Estate News, eco-friendly, green living, tear down, unbuild
May 7th, 2008 (2 weeks ago) at 11:44 am
Very interesting article Dee. Has not the east coast been taking woodwork, marble, fireplaces, stain glass, etc for years before a home is demolished? Then they go to salvage yards to be resold?
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May 7th, 2008 (2 weeks ago) at 5:36 pm
Interesting post. Couldn’t someone just save only the fireplace brick or the woodwork and demo the rest? I can’t imagine how long it must take to “unbuild” the entire structure!
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