Stately heritage homes are a dying breed in B.C., fast becoming victims of Vancouver’s changing housing landscape. Now, that trend is gaining some international profile.
Earlier this month, a photographer captured a shot that’s becoming one of the defining images of B.C.’s topsy-turvy real estate market: four beautiful early twentieth century homes on an ocean-going barge, bound for the San Juan Islands in Washington State.
According to the National Post, residents in the San Juans are picking up B.C. teardowns at bargain prices, either as affordable housing or because they value old-growth wood and craftsmanship. In Washington and places further afield, B.C. is becoming a go-to destination for character homes that would otherwise end up on the scrap heap, torn down for the value of the land beneath them.
Research from a University of B.C graduate scholar Zahra S.H. Teshnizi, suggests many don’t realize the value—and the ecological impact—of all those homes being sent to the landfill.
Teshnizi, a UBC Sustainability Scholar working with the City of Vancouver, explored the “opportunities and regulatory barriers” to reusing salvaged dimensional lumber from Vancouver’s pre-1940s houses.
Teshnizi’s analysis found that 90 per cent of Metro Vancouver’s construction waste comes from demolitions—well above the rate for other jurisdictions.
What’s more, much of that wood came from British Columbia’s old growth forests, many of which were victims of 20th-century clear cutting.
As a 2012 study from the Delta Institute puts it: “our old growth forests still stand—not in our forests, but in our buildings . . . here’s a lot of it, and it is reusable.”
Teshnizi’s study found that 75 per cent of directional lumber in pre-1940s homes is usable. In all, there’s enough of that lumber to build 8,000 single family homes.
As it stands, though, much of that wood is not reused. For one, it’s harder on tools, and oftentimes more expensive than new lumber. In addition, salvaged wood must be “regraded” by a qualified structural engineer for reuse, adding further costs and delays.
Teshnizi reports recommends that Vancouver and other municipalities encourage wood reuse through best practices, education documents, and “mandated audits” of salvageable materials in public projects.
The city has already rolled out some materials on wood recycling during renovations, but it remains to be seen the extent to which salvage education will have an impact.
As part of the Greenest City Action Plan, the City is looking to reduce solid waste going to the landfill or incinerator by 50 per cent by 2020, relative to 2008 levels.
If it does, that could be good news for communities like Oak Bay in Victoria, where many are fed up at losing good homes to the scrap heap—or parts south.
As Jim Connolly, a manager at a Vancouver Island house relocation firm told the Post: “They’re sick and tired of all that bloody waste.”
By Jonny Wakefield
14 April 2016