Building Character with Recycled Woods

When Dave Marsh, the author and music journalist who gave punk rock its name, and his wife, Barbara Carr, renovated their 250-year-old colonial house in Connecticut last year, they used chestnut wood salvaged from replaced parts of the house itself as well as from other New England buildings. The result is a beautiful and harmonious blend of materials, says Marsh, who once again finds himself at the forefront of a trend.

Quality lumber is being salvaged from such sources as old buildings, boats and fallen trees. While there are no good statistics, "Anecdotally, we hear that more and more people are using reclaimed lumber," says Bob Falk, a research engineer at the USDA Forest Products Laboratory.

It's high time we started reusing wood, because the United States consumes about one quarter of the world's forest products. One of the largest uses is for home building: Americans break ground on around 1.5 million new homes a year, and the average single-family dwelling requires about 15,000 board feet of lumber, according to the National Association of Home Builders. The U.S. Forest Service has estimated that an average home requires 88 trees, or 3.2 acres of forest.

Many contractors, facing dwindling supplies of virgin wood and rising prices, also are discovering that recycled wood—which tends to be a little more expensive—might not be such a tough economic choice when benefits are factored in. Jonathan Orpin, a New York builder, says recycled wood is "three to four times more energy efficient and will last three to four times as long" as standard lumber. Why? Wood that came originally from old-growth trees is of finer grain and higher quality than what's commonly available now. And since it's had time to fully dry, it tends to warp and shrink less than new boards.