Waste Reduction Through House Moving:

the Palatine-to-Evanston House Rescue in Fremont

Increasingly in the City of Seattle, developers, homeowners, and architects are
beginning to realize the built-in potential of House Moves as a means for creative re-use
of our Historic Quality houses which are threatened by demolition due to the units
being situated in higher-density zoning. A house move is not only the single highest reuse options for C&D (Construction & Demolition) materials, but recipients are seeing
the value for receiving the homes on their lots.
As the cost of construction continues to rise, it fosters a fantastic urban sustainability
model for both the developer, who saves the demolition costs, and the recipients, who
often get a house placed and fully functioning for about 1/3 to 1/2 less than the cost of
constructing a similar size and quality house.
Most notably, the amount of material saved from our landfills is staggering, when
considering that anywhere from 20% to 40% (or more by some estimates) of our
landfill space is filled with C&D debris. This case study will serve to illustrate house
much material is truly saved by re-using a house, as opposed to demolishing or even
using deconstruction & building salvage as a methodology. House moves are not always
possible, or practical, but when they are, they should be considered as the primary
method of saving the materials from a house, including the whole house
The subject house was located
at 3628 Palatine Ave N, and was
originally built in 1905 for Chas J.
Taylor, a former streetcar conductor
who became a commissioned letter
carrier for the U.S. Post Office. He and
his wife Effie lived in the house until
the early 1940s and had five children
during their time living there.
The house was lived in by seven
different owners or renters over its
years, until it was bought by Wayne
Simoneaux in 1985. Wayne and his
partner, Gary Kubista, fixed the
house up with major renovations,
including all new clear cedar siding,
new wood-sash thermal windows, new
Fremont house hits the road, arriving at its
roof, interior hardware and finishes,
destination on Steve Flynns lot at 11:00 am
and other major improvements, all
on September 7, 2008
done with historical sensitivity. They
established a popular B & B in the house, called the Gypsy Arms, which was
known in the neighborhood and beyond for its unusual nature, which included a
themed dungeon in the basement.
The house has four bedrooms, two bathrooms (not counting the basement
bathroom which was left behind), entry hall, kitchen, formal dining room, living
room, parlor, and back entry room, plus a full upstairs which houses most of the
bedrooms. It was considered a 1.5 story cottage, based on the wording on its

Total Waste Diversion:

85 tons for house
49.5 tons for foundation
134.5 for total project
98% overall recycling rate
Disposal Cost Savings:
$18,050 demolition fees
$2,125 savings-value to SPU
$20,175 for total project
Job-Site Diversion:
(through total re-use)
Wood Diverted
40 tons; 76 trees-worth; or
15,120 board-feet of lumber
Mixed C&D Diverted
45 tons
Concrete Recycled
49.5 tons
House Information:
Built in 1905
4 bed; 2 bath
Craftman/Victorian
1680 sq/ft; 520 sq/ft basement
Project Contacts:
Jeff McCord, House to Home
Phone: 206-933-9699
Joel Banslaben, SPU
Phone: 206-684-3636

original permit. However, the upstairs ceilings are full

height and the eaves do not interfere with the function
of the upstairs significantly, so by modern standards the
house would be referred to as a two story Craftsman or
Victorian home.
Due to development pressures on Palatine Ave N and
many of the surrounding blocks and other factors, the
house was sold to a developer in 2008. The Fremont

McCord (NB) on June 4, 2008, and NB worked to find a

recipient for the house by listing it on their website.
Steve Flynn, a local musician and longtime member
of the group, Jr. Cadillac, and a regular fan of Nickel
Bros. House Moving, had been watching the website for
a potential house for his nearby lot at 4020 Evanston
Ave N. Steve contacted NB and purchased the house for
moving to his property. Steves budget was extremely
limited, so it became critical to find a
way to make the house move feasible
for him to accomplish. NB agreed to
limit their fees to $75,000 plus tax for
the move itself, due in part to the fact
that the developer was willing to apply
a portion of their demolition costs to
the move ($8,000), and the City of
Seattle, SPU, was able to apply some
mitigation funds toward the project
($10,000), bringing the effective total
move costs to approximately $100,000
(including WA state sales tax).
Steve had to pay about $40,000 in
additional costs such-as wire lowering,
and tree cutting and replacement
along the move route. He was also
responsible for the cost of the
earthwork, building the foundation,
finishing costs for the basement, and
other costs on the receiving lot once
the house was delivered.

Historical Society had learned about the house being

threatened for demolition, and felt that this house
deserved to be re-used, rather than demolished, if at all
possible. Many neighbors had also spoken up, expressing
dismay that such a grand, high-quality house would
be destroyed. Heather McAuliffe (FHS) contacted Jeff

Overall, the economics of this

house move can be measured using
several factors: 1). The cost of the
move itself (approximately $150,000
with wire costs); 2). The whole
project cost (approximately $250,000
hard-costs in this case); and 3). The
houses value on its new lot once
completed. The value proposition is
quite significant in this case, with
grand Craftsman and Victorian houses
selling for $600,000 or more in the
neighborhood. Considering Steves
lot value, and a structure appraisal which would likely
top $350,000 when complete, Steve should see about
$100,000 or more in equity in his project when he is
done. But perhaps the true measure of the success of
this project, and the concept of house moving in general,
is when the concept of whole-cost accounting is used
(discussed later in this report).

Page [2]

Examples of other house moves in the Seattle area from 2007 to 2008 (clockwise from left): 3,800 sq/ft house from Hunts Point which
was moved to Nanaimo, BC; A couple who saved a 1600 sq/ft Craftsman on Phinney Ridge; a stately Craftsman on Queen Anne hill
that was saved by architect, Steve McDonald.

Environmental Sustainability Factors

What is saved in terms of the Environmental
Sustainability and Historic Preservation value?
Each house saved on-average weighs between 40 and
80 tons, depending on its size, meaning that between
80 and 160 thousand pounds of waste are kept from a
landfill.
A typical 1600 sq/ft house takes about 72 trees to
build (45 trees per 1000 sq/ft). Not only are those trees
saved from the landfill, but also the average 99 trees it
takes to build the average 2200 sq/ft house that is built
today, saving a total of 171 trees for every house that
is re-used rather than being torn down and a new one
built. This factor should be considered in the whole-cost
accounting method. In the case of the Fremont house
in this project, 85 tons of waste were diverted directly by
total re-use of the house on its new site. An additional
49.5 tons (estimated) was recycled concrete once the
house was removed from its original site.
Our national average of landfill space is filled with
approximately 20% to 40% C&D debris. Research on
the specifics of this subject varies based on a number of
sources. In fact, one consultant who performed some
work for Portland, OR said that Portlands percentage of
C&D in 2006 was as high as 70% (anecdotal reference).
His explanation was that certain municipalities will have

spikes in their percentages during certain construction

booms, as there have been in Portland and, for a long
time, in the Seattle area.
According to Seattles DPD (Department of Planning
and Development), the average number of SFR (Single
Family Residence) demolitions is 350 single-family units
per year over the past 10
years. This number spiked to
over 800 in the year 2007,
and may be expected to
drop to under 300 in 2009
due to the current National
financial and housing crisis.
Nickel Bros. House
Moving as a company moves
or lifts over 300 house per
year (150 moves, and 150
lifts). This translates to over 10,800 tress being saved if
you count only the moves, or 25,650 trees if you add in
the new construction lumber which are deferred from
being used because a house is not needing to be built on
the receiving site.
At an equivalency of 72 modern trees per average
older (1600 sq/ft) house*, that translates to 200
board-feet per tree, or 14,400 board-feet per house. By
that measure, Nickel Bros. House Moving saves over
2,160,000 board-feet (2.16 million board-feet) of lumber

Page [3]

from the landfill each year between its Seattle/Everett,

Victoria, Nanaimo, and Vancouver offices. An additional
19,800 per house is saved for the average 2200 sq/ft
new construction house, making the grand-total of 5.13
million board-feet of lumber saved each year through
house moves just by Nickel Bros. House Moving.
*Fewer, but larger trees were used in the past.
According to the EPA, each man, woman, and child
uses 643 pounds as their share of the paper consumed
in the United States in 2007. About 56% of that got
recycled (360 pounds per person per year). Based on the
fact that 72 trees are estimated to weigh approximately
625 pounds per tree, or 45,000 pounds per 1600 sq/
ft house, this would mean that re-using one house is
equivalent to 70 years of one persons paper use, or 125
years of their share of recycling paper.

Deconstruction (Salvage) Permitting

How does the City of Seattle work with people to

make it possible to save a house by moving it from
one location to another?
According to the DPDs own website:
DPD is proposing a new ordinance to amend the
Land Use Code to encourage reuse and recycling of
building materials. Current regulations require that
new development plans be approved before allowing the
demolition or the change of use of a structure containing
housing units. This requirement has the unintended
effect of making it difficult to deconstruct existing
structures and to maximize the salvage and recycling of
reusable building materials.
Deconstruction and the salvage of building materials
would be more cost-effective if allowed to begin while
the proposed new development is under review, in
appropriate circumstances. This proposal is intended
support the Citys sustainable building policies.
Highlights of the proposal: allows a demolition
permit to be issued when DPD has approved a waste
diversion plan; authorizes DPD to define by rule the
specific requirements of acceptable waste diversion
plans the requirements would set minimum levels of
building materials that must be diverted from landfills
and would be established on the basis of DPDs review
of practices employed in the relevant industries in the
region; provides greater flexibility to relocate a structure
containing dwelling units from one site to another, by
allowing relocation of structures either within the city
or outside the city limits; and adds penalties for failure
to demonstrate appropriate compliance with the waste
diversion plan. DPD staff provided a briefing for the

House from the Eastlake neighborhood which was saved in June,

2006, and moved to Shaw Island in the San Juan Islands.
City Councils Planning Land Use and Neighborhoods
Committee on December 4, 2008. Further Council
action, including a public hearing, are anticipated to
begin in January, 2009. For more information visit the
Residential Deconstruction website or contact Bill Mills
at (206) 684-8738.
The DPD has been actively working toward allowing
building deconstruction and salvage of all times, in
response to our worldwide environmental crises and in
anticipation to the City of Seattles initiative to move
toward a Zero Waste approach. Staff has worked to
develop an upcoming CAM (Client Assistance Memo)
which addresses the specific steps that must be taken
to bring a house move project through the Citys permit
approval process. They also have actively participated
in about 18 house move projects in the City of Seattle
in the past three years any many cases providing
staff to expedite the permit process on the house move
receiving site, a demolition permit for a sub-standard
house on a receiving lot, and sometimes even the original
sites new construction permit due to house move
timing issues.

Page [4]

The concept of an early demolition permit is a

critical one in order for more house moves to occur.
Previously, a new construction permit would have to
be approved and in-place before a demolition permit
could be issued and the house could be moved.* Because
the developer, traditionally, had to wait for their full
approval, many houses had too little time remaining
in the new construction schedule, and a recipient for
the house could not be found in time. The DPD began
allowing for this exception as an experimental matter,
so that a recipient could be searched for earlier in the
process, and the house could be scheduled to move and
moved off in a timely fashion, even if the developers new
project was still going through their approval process at
the DPD.
*Note: A house move, ironically, is still considered
a demolition in technical terms, because the house
is being removed from the foundation and the site, as
would be done with full demolition and/or building
salvage options.

The House Move Process

What steps does it take to actually move a house?

Typically it takes a minimum of two to six months
to insure a house can be moved and the process of
saving it can occur. There are notable exceptions where
a house has been saved in as little as two to three weeks,
but all the normal steps would need to be significantly
compressed in these extreme cases.
Step 1: Once a recipient has been identified for a
house, the estimates for wire costs along the route are
requested from the utility companies in Seattle that
typically means City Light, Qwest, Comcast, S-DOT
traffic signals, Do-IT fiber-optics, and sometimes other
companies just-as Sprint, Verizon, etc. Those estimates
are either paid for as part of the house purchase (in the
case of Nickel Bros House Moving), or paid directly by
the client (in the case of a contract move. These costs
can range from a few thousand dollars if the house is
single-story to as much as $2,000 to $5,000 per major
intersection or block. While the costs are charged by
the number of crews, trucks, and overtime hours on
the night of the move, they can sometimes be roughly
estimated based on counting the number of wires and
estimating the costs based on the size of the house and
other factors.
In addition to wires, tree trimming, or occasional
tree removal and replacement, may become necessary in
order to fit the house along the route. In such cases the
City of Seattle requires that the house mover or client

work with S-DOTs Urban Forestry department in

order to get a tree trimming permit. Also, it is typically
required to seek the approval of the homeowner who
owns the house in front of where the street tree is
located. While the trees are technically within the Cityowned grass strip or right-of-way, the City still considers
the tree to be owned and maintained by the homeowner
whos land is adjacent to the right-of-way.
There are some cases where a property owner will
refuse to allow a tree to be trimmed or removed and
replaced, even if it means the potential loss of the
entire house if there is no other practical route for the
house move. In such cases it would be ideal if the City of
Seattle could establish a policy to allow for removal and
replacement if the City were to judge that the loss of the
house (and the materials contained within the house)
were to far outweigh the value of the specific tree being
replaced. This is a touchy subject due to the fact that
some homeowners feel that their tree ownership trumps
the greater-good argument (even though the City
reserves the right to remove any tree within the right-ofway for a City project).
Step 2: Once the job arrangements have been made
and the move has been scheduled, the move-prep date is
usually about one to two weeks ahead of the actual move
date. Move prep consists of stripping out the basement
of the house if there are any walls, drywall, or ceiling
coverings. If pipes, ducts, and wiring stick down below
the floor joists, these are typically removed and set aside
for later removal. This C&D debris is typically either
placed in a pile in the back yard or placed into a container
in front of the house. When possible metal items and
other elements are sorted and set aside. Because the
house prep crew is trained primarily for the house prep
and loading, there is not a high level of materialssorting that is performed by the house moving crew, so
the programmatic approach of the developer who will
inherit the site once the house is removed plays a large
part in whether the materials get reused, recycled, or
dumped. This is an area well-worth taking a closer look at
so achieve a higher level of recycling.
Step 3: Once the basement is stripped out to the
bare bones of just the support posts and beams, 2-foot
by 2-foot holes are knocked into the foundation in the
front and the back of the house, and the two main
beams are craned into place under the house. Typically
these beams are placed about five to seven feet in from
the edge of the house and run the long direction from
front to back. These beams act as the full support of
the house during the move, and they balance the house
based on a cantilever effect, relieving the support

Page [5]

needed by the houses original center beam. Cribbing

piles (crisscrossed stacks of blocks) are placed under the
main beams typically under four spots near the four
corners of the house. Once the cribbing is in place the
house can be lifted off if its existing foundation.
The house is then lifted with a balanced hydraulic
jacking system, which pushes it up with a hose system
which can balance the weight carried by each jack to
match the weight of the house at that point. There may
be some plaster cracking that can occur at this point due
to the fact that the house may not be sitting level after
years of settling on its old foundation. Structural damage
is not done, however, in this procedure or during the
move, even though the aesthetic repair of the cracked
plaster will be necessary.
It is lifted high enough that two rear dollies can be
placed under beams at the rear portion of the house,
and a cross-beam (or bunk) is placed between the
two beam beams near the front of the house. Later the
bunk is used to connect the pulling-truck (tractor) to
the middle of the bunk. By having two rear supportingpoints and one front supporting point, the house forms
a triangle of support, which allows it to tilt and sway
without torquing the house as it would if it was held at
four points with four dollies, where any one dolly could
cause its corner to drop while the other corners are not
dropping or shifting.

Step 4: The house move itself typically begins at

2:00 am on a Saturday or Sunday morning, just after
midnight the day before. A brigade of support vehicles
accompany the move, including the crane-truck, crew
truck, two pilot cars (front and rear), two City of Seattle
S-DOT Commercial Vehicle Enforcement officers, two or
more trucks from each of the utility crews, and others.
This procession moves slowly down the street, stopping
frequently to slowly navigate a wire lift or lower, a tight
spot between poles or streetlights, tree branches, or the
occasional traffic signal. This move can take between
three and seven hours or more, depending on its length
and complexity.

Step 5: Once the house is delivered to the site, a

cleanup of the previous site is done by the move crew and
then the developer who owns the land. Concrete can now
be recycled from the previous foundation and sorting
and C&D debris can be performed. On the new site, the
house is put up on cribbing again and the truck head is
removed. At this point the house can be placed at about
eleven feet high (about two feet higher than its final
elevation) so that the recipients contractor can build the
foundation and pony-walls underneath the house. Once
the foundation is complete the house moving company
comes back (about 30 days later) and lowers the house
onto the new foundation. Hookups are done and the
house becomes functional in as little as two to three
months. This often saves the client money over the cost
of building due to the fact that they do not have to pay
as much in carrying costs to pay the loan interest while
the house is being built.

Notes: In certain cases, a house can be moved by

barge from one place to another. The house moving
company places 40-foot portable ramps from the road or
landing point to the barge deck and the house is driven
on-board. In such cases the house can be delivered far
further than with a local move, and some many more
houses can end up being saved by using this method.
Houses can even be moved to storage locations around
the Puget Sound to give them more time to find a
recipient who is interested in buying them.
Nickel Bros House Moving has a website (www.
nickelbros.com) where people can go to see the latest
house stock available for purchase on the site.

Page [6]

Whole-Cost Accounting

Costs associated with saving materials

Besides the obvious benefits of the house that

is being rescued by the house move, what other
factors need to be considered to account for the
complete benefits, and impacts, of a house move?

Benefits (value) of materials when re-used

In the case of the Fremont house, 76 trees-worth of

lumber are saved by reusing the house on Steve Flynns
lot. 85 tons of waste are diverted from having to be
disposed of. However, there are some additional hidden
numbers that should also be considered when calculating
the benefits and impacts of this type of waste diversion.
Some of these figures would also apply equally with other
types of waste diversion, such-as deconstruction and
building salvage, so the net impact of a house move is
consistently the greatest savings of any method. For
example, the 98% recycling rate figure with a house move
would be in comparison to a maximum of 85% recycling
rate for deconstruction, and about 10% to 20% recycling
rate for building salvage.
Digging a little deeper, a house move saves 98% of
the materials with the least amount of input of energy,
because the materials are completely re-used, without
intervening use or processing, as opposed to just
being recycled. The only input of energy is the work
preparing and lifting the house, and the transportation
of the whole house to its new site. The equipment used
to transport the house and support it while the new
foundation is being built (steel, cribbing, etc.) gets
reused continually from job to job.
Deconstruction, while saving up to 85% of the
waste, also requires taking the elements apart, sorting
them, removing nails and other non-usable items, and
transporting the sorted material to distinct, separate
locations. Building salvage also requires input of effort
to remove, transport, re-sell, and re-install, and yields
a much smaller percentage of the total potential waste
diversion. However, it is fair to say that the 10%-15%
of material saves is of the highest quality, and therefore
probably originally took over 80% of the effort to
produce in the first place.
All of the following factors need to be considered
when taking the whole-cost accounting approach, and
can be the only accurate method of determining the
most-effective method to use on each project:
Volume (weight) of materials saved
Quality and reusability of materials saved
Effort (person-hours) needed to save materials
Time factors in saving materials

Side-factors/benefits to the method of re-use

Here are some key side-effects of the Fremont house
move project, and how they apply to the other methods
of recycling or re-use:
1. Steve Flynn had a small, sub-standard house
on his lot prior to the Fremont being moved there.
This house was allowed to be salvaged by the Re-Store,
who took cabinets, windows, flooring, porch railings,
and some other minor materials from the house. The
remaining material was demolished and disposed of in
the conventional fashion.
It is estimated that 2,000 pounds of materials were
salvaged, and 18 tons (the remainder of the single-story,
1,100 sq/ft house) were transported to the landfill.
It is important to point out that his house was not
serving his needs in terms of energy efficiently, size,
safety (i.e. electrical system, etc.), and other factors, and
so it was going to need to be demolished and rebuilt in
any case, meaning that the house move did not cause
the need for the demolition of the house, but it is
important to point these numbers out in the whole-cost
accounting approach.
2. There was also a small, single-car garage at the
3628 Palatine Ave N site that the house came from.
Moving a garage of this size and quality is typically not
practical, because it requires cutting holes about every
seven feet through the base of the garage, and creating a
temporary floor structure of beams to left the structure
by. Houses have a floor joist system, and garages are
typically built on-slab.
In this case, Steve Flynn salvaged the key elements of
the garage to be re-used: The carriage-style garage doors,
the trim, some of the wood, siding, and windows. The
remaining portion (about 6,000 pounds) was disposed of
by the developer once the house was gone.
3. A key benefit that cannot be achieved by
any other method but house moving is that only the
foundation has to be created on the receiving site in
order to have a complete, fully-functional home on a
property. This factor actually creates an immense savings
over the amount of materials and energy to construct a
new house on the same location.
The average new-construction house in the US is
2,200 sq/ft, which would require an additional 99 trees
in the final constructed house plus an additional 20 trees
to account for the estimated 20% construction waste

Page [7]

that occurs. This means that 119 trees, plus the 76 trees
being saved by the house move, minus about 36 trees
expected to be used in the basement framing, equal a
whopping 159 trees-worth of lumber are actually saved
when a house is moved instead of building a new one.
By deconstructing or performing building salvage, it
is not possible to avoid having to build a new house on a
lot, when a replacement house is needed.
There is also a benefit to re-use the human
embodied energy that it took to build the older house
in the first place. The craftsmanship, quality, and time
that it took to build the house is lost the moment a
bulldozers blade hits the house. By moving the house
all that work, time, and energy is brought forward to its
new use, and would be expected to have a new lifespan of
an additional 100 years or more.
In fact, one of the largest factors for the lifespan a
house is indeed its foundation, which is the very thing
that gets replaced when it gets to its new location. By
building a new foundation on the new lot, all the modern
code requirements need to be adhered to, do there are
modern earthquake tie-downs, correct concrete mixes
with plenty of steel (rebar), energy requirements for
insulation, doors, and windows which are met, and it
often also gives the new recipient an opportunity to
install high efficiency heating systems, such-as in-floor
radiant heat. Water encroachment and foundation
settling are generally a thing of the past, all working to
make the house last longer than it ever would have if left
at its original location.
The embodied energy factor would also be redoubled
if a new construction house had to be built on the
property, meaning that all the work, time, and energy
needed for a replacement house on a lot can be avoided.

Method for Calculations

How were the statistics listed on Page One of this

report arrived at?
1. The house tonnage is calculated at the point the
house itself is lifted. Nickel Bros. House Moving is able
to determine accurate weight of the house once pressure
is applied to the jacking system. The the pressure reading
on the master valve meter can be converted to tonnage,
and the weight of the steel is then subtracted from the
total reading. In this case, the total tonnage reading was
approximately 100 tons, with the steel weighing 15 tons.
Subtracting this steel weight, the resulting weight of the
house is 85 tons.
The 98% overall recycling rate is determined by

estimating the materials left behind when the house was

removed from the site (approximately
2. The concrete weight is calculated based on
using a concrete volume calculator. An example can be
found at: [http://www.concretenetwork.com/concrete/
howmuch/calculator.htm]. For the purposes of this
calculation, the slab, walls, and footings sizes were
estimated based on the houses measurements, and the
concrete yardage calculation was determined to be
approximately 30 yards of concrete.
As a point of comparison, the modern foundation
for the Fremont house, once placed on Steve Flynns lot,
has been estimated to require approximately 40 yards
of concrete. These differences are due to the fact that
current code requires thicker footings, and higher wall
and slab minimum requirements as compared to older
foundations.
The weight of the concrete was estimated by
researching what the average weight of concrete is
per cubic yard. Estimates ranged from 3,500 lbs per
cubic yard, to as much as 4,000 lbs per cubic yard. We
contacted a local concrete supplier (Stoneway Concrete),
and they informed us that dry concrete should actually
weigh anywhere from 2,700 lbs per cubic yard to 3,300
per cubic yard. It was explained that the weight of
concrete actually varies by region due to the specific
gravity of the rock used in the mix, the weight of
concrete wet vs. dry, the types of materials used in the
mix, and other factors. We cannot ascertain why the
number range is so broad, so we elected to use the local
estimates as our point of reference, and settled on the
top end of that range (3,300 lbs per cubic yard). At that
rate, 30 yards would represent 49.5 tons.
3. The demolition fee statistic is calculated based
on using Seattles garbage rate for the mixed C&D
debris, which is $130 per ton. Based on the 85 tons
for the house, this would represent a disposal cost of
$11,050. We then added an industry estimate of $7,000
for hauling and machine work time to remove a house of
this size. This would mean that disposing of the house
would have cost the developer approximately $18,050. Is
should be noted that some developers have a wholesale
relationship with their demolition contractor, or they
have a deal worked out where the demolition machine
time is billed at a lower rate due to the fact that the
operator has the larger excavation contract, so this total
demolition cost can vary (in a house of this size) from
about $12,000 to as much as $21,000.
We also considered the City of Seattles (SPU) figure
for savings-value for diverted waste. The per-ton
number that SPU uses is $25 per ton. Hence, the 85 ton

Page [8]

Appendix:

house would also represent $2,125 in savings-value

from a City perspective.
The total cost savings for this project, by these
measures, is counted as $20,175 by moving the house
instead of demolishing it. The concrete recycling itself is
not counted.

(example) House recycling content and weight of

typical building materials per cubic yard: http://www.
recyclecddebris.com/rCDd/Resources/WasteStudy/
Chapter06S1.aspx

4. In terms of job-site diversion, we estimate

the amount of wood to be contained in a house of this
size (1680 sq/ft) to be approximately 76 trees-worth,
40 tons, or 15,120 board-feet of lumber. There are
approximately 45 trees per 1,000 sq/ft in a house of
average construction. At 200 board-feet per averagesized lumber-baring tree, this translates to 9,000 boardfeet per 1,000 sq/ft of house that are being saved. The
exception is the basement, which in this case is about
1,000 sq/ft. We have calculated the number of trees
used to build a basement as being 36 trees instead of 45
trees, due to the fact that there is no floor joist system
(slab floor instead), and because the walls are made up of
concrete for a large portion of the wall structure.
It should be noted that the trees used in the
construction of this house were original, old-growth
Douglas Fir trees. This yielded clear, furniture-quality fir
lumber, and took fewer, but much larger, trees. Hence,
the modern lumber equivalency is used in this case. By
using modern standards we are able to calculate the
total lumber saved with both the house re-use and the
prevented new construction house that would have
to be built in its place on the receiving lot if a recycled
house were not used.
The 40 tons estimated for wood use in the house is
based on research which tells is that approximately 47%
of a house by weight is wood or wood products. This
would mean that 47% of 85 tons would be 39.95 tons
(rounded to 40 tons).
The remaining balance of the 85 tons diverted
includes drywall, cardboard, metals, asphalt shingles,
masonry, paints, caulks, glues, glass, and mixed wastes,
totalling approximately 45 tons.
The concrete diverted from landfill space is discussed
in Point (2) above, and totals an estimated 49.5 tons.

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