Hi!  I have a question for you all.  My husband and I are not handy people at all.  I am a teacher, and he works a desk job.  Enough said.  :) 

Anyway, when we were at our construction site this past week, we noticed a ton of lumber in the dumpster.  We have an ICF home, so much of it was used for bracing and is now being scrapped.  I asked our builder where it was headed, and he said it was just going to the landfill.  That seemed a pity to me, especially since the majority of it is untreated wood, so doesn't contain any of those terrible chemicals that might leach into the land.  I told him that, if he has some with few or no nails in them, to set that lumber aside for us, and that we would rent a wood chipper and turn it into mulch. 

I've got a feeling I lept before I looked, and now I'm wondering how big of a job this will be for us.  Will I end up just calling someone else to haul it away, at our expense? Or is it fairly doable for two non-handy people to remove a few nails and grind up a pretty good size pile of wood to use as mulch? 

Any thoughts or suggestions would be appreciated!  I looked at our local landfill, and they don't seem to have a lumber recycling program, more's the pity.

Thank you!
Heather W
Our ICF Home Construction Journal

I don't really see much of a problem with pulling any nails and mulching it. However, a fir type species, will decay. And, it might even draw termites. So, I don't think that it'll last very long.

Now, if you've got a fireplace(not mulched of course)?

Great point; I didn't think about the decaying & attracting termites issue.  We don't have a fireplace; we're in Florida and really don't have a need for it.  Maybe we could look around & try to find someone with a fireplace who would be willing to accept our cut up lumber.

Any other ideas for what we could do to recycle the lumber, if we can't use it as mulch?

Cheers!
Heather W
Our ICF Home Construction Journal

Drag it out to the road and put a FREE sign on it. I know someone like me would gladly take it

That's just another good reason to use a commercial bracing system. Could be rented and returned. No land fill cost, no waste. Probably would have cost less in the long run.

I was really hoping more for ideas for what we could do at this point; our builder didn't go with the rented bracing, so now we have this pile of lumber in our yard! 

Putting it out for someone else to use is a good idea, except that we're in a gated community, so I don't think that we would get much traffic from other builders.  Also we may get in trouble with the HOA! 

Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you again!

Heather W

Our ICF Home Construction Journal

Try donating it to Habitat For Humanity.  They may be able to use it. 

Where are you located? We have a company that recycles construction site waste close to us in the Hudson Valley, NY.... We have their dumpster on site.

Visit these sites for someone to pick up your wood and recycle it in Florida:

The www.wbdg.org allows searches by region and material:

http://www.wbdg.org/tools/cwm/listing.php?id=324&s=FL&z=&o[]=22

http://www.wbdg.org/tools/cwm/listing.php?id=329&s=FL&z=&o[]=22

http://www.habitat.org/env/restores.aspx

http://www.buildingreuse.org/

Hope this helps!

Have you inquire with the local high school if their shop class needs lumber?

Good ideas; thank you for your help!  And yes, as someone posted, we are located in Central FL.
Cheers!
Heather W
Our ICF Home Construction Journal

I have an idea... Have you thought of adding a porch to your house? I have seen porch installation here in Columbia MO that was made by using scrap lumber and it looked good! If you have a lawn or a yard you could also have fence installation. This is very unique and you don't even have to spend a lot.

Well, this topic is pretty old, but for other people in similar situations ... there is a mill near us that will take minimum 12" piece of dimensional lumber and re-work them into fingerjoint studs.

While a person doesn't get paid for the material it is a good option compared to dumping it in a land fill.

North-Cooke

There are lots of companies that are offering the same services which you are looking for, in this regard you can contact with your society manager, i think he can suggest you a better option.