Green Halo News

Deconstruction vs. Traditional Demolition

Tue. Jun 28th, 2011 at 1:13pm

San Francisco, CA – Greenworx, the San Francisco Bay Area’s leading deconstruction and green demolition company, has taken deconstruction and recycling to a whole new level. The streets of San Francisco are laden with old homes with great architectural features, old world construction, and quality materials. Salvaging these materials during renovation and making sure whatever can be recycled is recycled is a difficult job, especially when many of these homes have gone through several owners, tenants and trends, ranging from the early 1900’s, pre and post 1906, to the latest fads and fashions of the past decades.

Uncovering these materials and salvaging them for reuse and recycling is nothing new to Greenworx, which performs several of these home deconstruction projects every month. What is new is the level of recycling and salvage Greenworx has achieved on a project located in San Francisco’s Noe Valley District for their client Moroso Construction. Moroso Construction normally sets high green building standards for themselves and their subs, but in this case the home owners wanted even more. They wanted to salvage many of the materials, particularly the old wood  framing, for reuse in their new home. With the proper planning and deconstruction of the residential structure, Greenworx set out to achieve that goal and provide the owners with useable salvaged materials.

The home had many layers of lead paint and asbestos which required abatement.  Once that was complete, Greenworx began the deconstruction of the home, starting with the roof and working their way down to dirt. Each material was sorted and source separated to achieve the maximum purity of individual materials for recycling and reuse. That is something that cannot be done with traditional tear down demolition. The project generated a total of 162.7 tons of material, of which 130.16 tons were recycled and salvaged, achieving a diversion rate of 81.29% on the project.

Achieving this high a level of diversion on an old San Francisco home is very difficult to do, especially when the recyclable materials are covered in layers of non-recyclable materials. To track their progress on this project, Greenworx used an online waste management software called Green Halo that allowed them to track the recycling and salvage of all materials generated from the site. Green Halo allows the contractor to accurately track the recycling progress of any construction project, and displays the diversion and recycling rates of the project in real time. Green Halo also helps locate the nearest recycling and salvage outlets to your location, helping reduce the carbon footprint impact of a  project and maximize recycling efforts.

Greenworx has proven that with a little extra effort, planning, and a little technology, you can achieve high levels of recycling and salvage on even the oldest of structures therefore saving and re-introducing quality materials back into the system, that would normally be scrapped and landfilled. Isn’t this what reduce, recycle,  and reuse means? Good job Greenworx!

Tear Down Demolition vs. Green Demolition/Deconstruction
This report compares the cost and recycling differences between tearing a structure down with a machine and compared to deconstructing the same home by hand.

	Tear Down Demolition	Green Demoliton/Deconstruction
Abatement	$5,000	$5,000
Demolition Costs	$17,500	$19,800
Days to Complete	3	5
Labor	5 people	12 people
Fuel for Trucks and Equipment	102 gallons	74 gallons
Total Tonnage	162.7 tons	162.7 tons
Total Tonnage Recycled	50%	81.29%
Total Tonnage Disposed	50%	18.71%
Total Tonnage Reused On Site	0%	21.8%
Cost Savings in Reusing Materials	NO	YES

Material Disposition:

Concrete – Recycled and ground for base rock.
Bricks – Remove mortar, stacked and donated to charity for reuse.
Hardwood Flooring – Salvaged, de-nailed and donated to Habitat for Humanity.
Wood Framing – De-nailed, planed and reused on site.
Copper Piping – Recycled
Sewer Lines and Plumbing – Recycled
Electrical - Recycled
Roofing Material – Recycled

For more information on Greenworx to  or call 1-888-714-7444

For more information on Green Halo go to  or call 1-888-525-1301

For more information on Moroso Construction go to  or call 1-415-777-1121