Hennepin County’s new deconstruction grant program, which launched in January, offers up to $5,000 to home and apartment building owners and developers to salvage, reuse, and recycle building material from remodeling and demolition projects. The money is meant to help offset the additional time and labor costs for deconstruction.
During deconstruction, building structures are carefully dismantled to salvage building materials for reuse. A building is taken apart, mostly by hand, and materials are sorted into categories for recycling and reuse.
“Don’t think of your building materials as waste,” said Olivia Cashman, environmental protection specialist for Hennepin County. “Be creative and think about how you could incorporate existing components into your next project, sell to an antique shop for historical preservation, or donate to support the community.”
Types of materials that can be salvaged and reused include appliances, cabinets, doors, hot water radiators, light fixtures, windows, and wood flooring and trim.
Northeast Minneapolis resident and environmentalist Barbara Bridges is a veteran renovator.
“I have renovated several dwellings over the years, usually with little money and lots of imagination,” Bridges said. She uses the types of things people could salvage. In 2007, she bought a foreclosed house in Northeast and rehabbed it using “Habitat for Humanity ReStore, YouTube, the Re-Use Center, Savers, Craig’s List, and cruising the Minneapolis alleys.” She found solid wood kitchen cabinets at a reuse center for $500 and got tiles that were seconds at local tile shops.
Bridges not only uses recycled material in her renovation projects, she uses it to make art. “I am an assemblage sculptor. That is a fancy way to say ‘I glue junk together,’” she said. “My art form makes a lifestyle of saving objects from the landfills and arranging them so they are not only beautiful but also have a social justice message.” Bridges is a teacher and the director of the global nonprofit Art to Change the World: arttochangetheworld.org.
Her house, she said, “is simply a very large sculptural monument to re-use, re-purpose, and re-imagine.”
Her advice for renovating with recycled material: Make sure you’re the type of person who enjoys the hunt for materials, have a place to store your treasures while they’re waiting for a new purpose, stay fluid and open to finding something that takes you off in an entirely different direction, and utilize YouTube.
“Your skill will improve and your satisfaction will grow with each project,” she said.
The county has $100,000 for grants in 2020 and is currently moving forward with eight projects. Applications have slowed down in the past month due to COVID-19, Cashman said, but they’re still processing them remotely. They will evaluate funding for 2021.
Grant applicants must be in participating cities: Brooklyn Center, Brooklyn Park, Edina, Excelsior, Hopkins, Minneapolis, or St. Louis Park. Projects must meet reuse and disposal criteria and the work must be on houses or apartments up to four units, that were built prior to 1950, and are 250 square feet or larger.
For those who don’t qualify or aren’t interested in the grant program, there are other opportunities to salvage, recycle, or reuse materials.
Several for-profit and nonprofit companies accept usable household building materials in the Twin Cities. Some companies will come to your home to remove building materials, and some will pay for your building materials.
One buyer of recycled materials is Architectural Antiques (archantiques.com) in Northeast Minneapolis,1330 Quincy St. NE, which is currently encouraging shopping from home due to COVID-19, and can arrange delivery or curbside pickup.
Hennepin County suggests contacting salvage and recycling businesses and communicating salvage and recycling plans with contractors prior to the start of construction or demolition.
“If you are interested in building material salvage but aren’t sure where to start, reach out and we can discuss your project or ideas,” Cashman said, at 612-348-4843 or olivia.cashman@hennepin.us.
To apply for a grant or for info and tips visit hennepin.us/salvage.
Below: Barbara Bridges poses by a curio wall created by putting shelves between studs of a wall from which the plaster and lath have been removed. Everything “except the refrigerator” in the kitchen came from salvage shops or scavenging. Driftwood railing is by the front steps. (Provided photos) Above photos within article are provided photos from Hennepin County. More about “Dr. B” and more about the county grant program and where to find, recycle or donate household materials, can be read by clicking this link.
