One local family redefined home recycling this month.

A growing trend featured in the Park City Area Showcase of Homes this year is homeowners tearing down old houses to build new on their lots mostly because Park City is running out of vacant lots.

Rob and Barbara Wolin decided to do this to their house on Silver Cloud Drive.

“They loved the views and the neighborhood, but architecturally, they wanted something different,” said Realtor Karen Gage.

But the Wolins couldn’t bear the thought of all the waste, so they asked general contractor Sam Costanzo to salvage as much from the house as possible. What was reusable was donated to Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore.

The ReStore accepts salvaged or unneeded construction materials and resells them to help fund the organization’s projects.

What wasn’t donated was reused if possible. Some wood will go back into the new house. Some decorative stone will be crushed for gravel.

“It seemed the more responsible thing to do,” Barbara Wolin said. “I’ve always been concerned about environmental issues and believe in recycling It was worth it, totally worth it.”

“It would have cost her a lot less to have a demolition team. She just had a really hard time thinking that all that stuff would go to the landfill,” Costanzo said.

He hired Mike Maza to take the home apart piece-by-piece.

“And I mean piece-by-piece,” he said. “He dissembled it All the stone work, all the cabinetry, interior lighting, doors, windows copper pipes, copper wiring.”

Demotion would have taken five days with a wrecking ball, but the dissembling took nearly three weeks and was only just completed earlier this week, he said.

Ed Blake, executive director of the Salt Lake Valley Habitat for Humanity said the Salt Lake City ReStore often receives material from these kinds of projects. They also see excess tile from finished jobs, replaced furniture from hotel rooms, and recently received five semi-truck trailers full of unwanted, but brand new, cabinets from Lowe’s.

The ReStore keeps thousands of tons of material out of landfills, Blake said, and the proceeds benefit Habitat for Humanity. Within the next year, profits from the ReStore will be able to fully fund overhead, allowing every monetary donation to go directly toward a beneficiary’s mortgage.

via Home leveled brick by brick, then donated – The Park Record.