Recycling Homes

Do you know of a firm that recycles homes, saves cabinets and appliances?

- Doug, Brighton

Home Deconstruction

Yep, Detroit has a deconstruction nonprofit. They’re called The Architectural Salvage Warehouse of Detroit. They’re great. They de-construct houses to reuse the materials. You can find them at www.aswdetroit.org

Also, Habitat for Humanity has the ReStore program. While there are many of these around the state, I’m most familiar with the first (and largest?) in the state: Detroit’s. They take donations, but they also do a certain amount of “cherry-picking” – so not full deconstruction, but removing some items before demolition for re-use. You can find them at www.habitatdetroit.org/Restore

These places are great because they save materials from the landfill, they help provide jobs (compared to demolition which provides many fewer jobs) and they then provide construction materials to the community for far more affordable prices than buying new. Everyone wins!