Deconstruction starting under new city ordinance
Old homes will be taken apart, not demolished
One of the first deconstruction projects is starting after the City of Milwaukee passed an ordinance requiring deconstruction rather than demolition for many properties.
A pair of duplexes at 2075 N. Cambridge Ave. is expected to start being dismantled piece by piece, or deconstructed, Tuesday. The site will later become a four story, 36-unit apartment complex named Cambridge North Apartments.
A Milwaukee ordinance went into effect in January that requires singlefamily homes and duplexes built in 1929 or before to be deconstructed.
The ordinance also applies to designated historic homes and homes in historic districts.
During deconstruction, a building is systematically taken apart down to the foundation instead of demolished with heavy machinery. The process keeps many materials intact so they can be reused or recycled instead of going to a landfill.
“We don’t just take a bulldozer and knock down the building and decimate all the pieces,” said Kathryn Thoman, a spokeswomen for Recyclean, the company deconstructing the duplexes.
A deconstruction crew usually works in the opposite order of a building crew. Some of the last items to be installed in a home, such as toilets, appliances and
interior doors, are the first to be removed.
The ordinance requires 85 percent of materials to be diverted from the landfill, but Recyclean said usually 90 percent of the building materials get reused or recycled.
“Most people throw something in a dumpster and then they don’t think about it ever again,” said Recyclean founder Mike Goffman. “When we throw something in a dumpster, that’s
not the end. It’s going to go off somewhere else to be recycled.”
Wood from doors or kitchen cabinets is turned into planters, headboards or mulch. Old carpeting is melted down to be used in new carpet.
Other materials such as light switches and lighting fixtures are saved for months until the company ships them off to a facility that separates the metal.
Even old toilets can be saved if there are places that sell the parts to fix them. If not, the plaster is used to make cement.
“We have homes for everything,”
Goffman said.
The reduction in materials going to landfills saves greenhouse gasses and reduces the city’s tipping fee.
“This provides an immediate waste disposal savings to taxpayers,” said District 4 Ald. Robert Bauman, one of the ordinance’s sponsors.
Deconstruction also creates jobs, because the process takes several weeks longer and requires more workers than demolition, Bauman said.
“One of the number one reasons I supported this ordinance is that it creates more jobs,” Bauman said. “Deconstruction is very labor-intensive.”
The extended timeline and need for more workers causes deconstruction to often cost nearly twice as much as demolition.
This cost can be offset later by selling some of the materials and historic items saved from the homes, but until that market is developed the property owner is left paying more.
“We have no real secondary market right now,” Bauman said. “We hope to develop a secondary market, but right now the upfront cost is higher.”
Bauman said the ordinance could apply to many of the city’s future projects. In 2016, 94 percent of the city’s demolitions were buildings built before 1930, according to city data.
He said the overall the job creation and environmental benefits make the ordinance beneficial to the city.
“In totality I believe the benefits outweigh the upfront cost,” Bauman said.