In early March, a team of 4 ReUse employees and 15 volunteers, including those from Significant Elements and Cortland ReUse, carefully took on the enjoyable work of salvaging parts of a 2-story, 4,000 sqft 1850’s Farmhouse style home in Cortland. This property was purchased by SUNY Cortland as a site for redevelopment by the University.
In rough numbers, we were able to salvage 400 square feet of oak flooring, 200 square feet of hemlock flooring, 400 square feet of plank pine flooring, 600 square feet of insulation, 20 interior doors with hardware, assorted lighting, and two truckloads of furniture, appliances, and kitchen cabinets.
This material has been brought to the Ithaca ReUse Center and the ReUse Megacenter at Triphammer Marketplace. We also shared the materials with Cortland ReUse and Significant Elements to make this a collaborative community activity and to distribute the materials across our programs and communities in need.
Returning materials to our communities ensures the highest reusability rather than sending them to the landfill. With conservative estimates, this has an estimated environmental value of preserving 2.5 tons of embodied carbon—this is equivalent to the amount of carbon sequestered by 35 tree saplings over 10 years of growth.
This work has been made possible both by SUNY Cortland’s inquiry for more sustainable building options, as well as support from a fantastic team of volunteers across Tompkins and Cortland counties.
Take a look at our online marketplace for these materials and more: https://ithacareuse.org/decon-materials-for-sale/ Additionally, if you are interested in volunteering on future deconstruction or reuse projects, please reach out to Andrew: andrewboghossian@fingerlakesreuse.org or fill out our volunteer application.