There’s more than one way to take down a home in Chicago. You can use a wrecking ball, or you can try something new: home deconstruction.
Chicago Public Radio’s Shawn Allee explains.
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Home deconstruction’s like building a house but in reverse.
Wall panels, windows, and boards … they’re all removed, not smashed.
The idea’s to re-sell and re-use as much material as possible.
Environmental housing groups like Urban Habitat Chicago hope deconstruction catches on.
The group’s Dave Hampton.
Hampton: If you cannot a building or reuse a building there should be a better way for it to meet its end. Deconstruction is definitely a way for it to go, it’s a way for it to have a new life there really is no concept of waste in nature … it’s closer to that.
Hampton says the Lake View neighborhood has the city’s first home deconstruction project.
He estimates the owner will keep sixty-six thousand pounds of material out of landfills.
I’m Shawn Allee.
Chicago Public Radio.