The Prices Of Reclaimed Wood

I was looking on Ebay at the sold listings for reclaimed wood.
The prices for some of this stuff is really high !

In the past couple years I have got into reclaimed wood. About a month ago I cleaned up a barn that had fall down. It took me and 4 other guys 2 full days to clean up the mess, de-nail all the wood, and load it on a trailer. I kept all 2X4 and 2x6, sold the actual wood that came off the sides. Had to haul it about 2 hrs away. Got 1857 dollars. Payed my guys, and came out over $900 ahead, plus 3 truck loads of saw mill cut 2x4 and 2x6, plus a large load of tin that kept. The old corrugated tin. It's rusty and that stuff sells. The same place that buys the lumber gives $2-$5 per sheet, depending on how many holes in it. They pay $2.55 a foot on the oak lumber. Popular and beach is $1.39 a foot. They also buy the tier rails and the posts. If they are hand hued posts, they bring more.
That is NOT typical of all barns. Most are made mainly of popular or beach. This barn had beach and oak, which look the same, unless u look very closely. They looked at the load on my trailer, and said it was all oak. The driver of the forklift unloaded it, signed the ticket as all oak, wrote the footage down, and walked me to the office. I wasn't going to argue with them. And that wasn't the first time they done that, but it was the largest load I took at once.
There is good money in it. I know I guy who bought two Barns to tear down and done the inside of his house

Originally Posted by mseashell

In the past couple years I have got into reclaimed wood. About a month ago I cleaned up a barn that had fall down. It took me and 4 other guys 2 full days to clean up the mess, de-nail all the wood, and load it on a trailer. I kept all 2X4 and 2x6, sold the actual wood that came off the sides. Had to haul it about 2 hrs away. Got 1857 dollars. Payed my guys, and came out over $900 ahead, plus 3 truck loads of saw mill cut 2x4 and 2x6, plus a large load of tin that kept. The old corrugated tin. It's rusty and that stuff sells. The same place that buys the lumber gives $2-$5 per sheet, depending on how many holes in it. They pay $2.55 a foot on the oak lumber. Popular and beach is $1.39 a foot. They also buy the tier rails and the posts. If they are hand hued posts, they bring more.
That is NOT typical of all barns. Most are made mainly of popular or beach. This barn had beach and oak, which look the same, unless u look very closely. They looked at the load on my trailer, and said it was all oak. The driver of the forklift unloaded it, signed the ticket as all oak, wrote the footage down, and walked me to the office. I wasn't going to argue with them. And that wasn't the first time they done that, but it was the largest load I took at once.
There is good money in it. I know I guy who bought two Barns to tear down and done the inside of his house

ps- its poplar- NOT popular.

It's probably a good idea to check the market in your local area before jumping into a tear down project. I was over thirty years in the trades and never had any call on my projects for used wood. The weathered wood barn boards were poplar back in the 70's along with 1/4" paneling as an inside finish but they seem to have gone out of style.

Used bricks used to bring .25 cents each.

Wavy glass seems to be somewhat in demand these days. It's the really old glass that has waves in it. I think they use it for cabinet doors. Stained glass panels are keepers. Old hardware is popular with the restorers. They especially like the sliding barn door hardware. Not much demand for old window sashes but old double doors with windows in them can sell for a good price.

Hard to imagine oak as a beam. That's a hardwood. It would have been like driving nails into a rock to fasten it off ... not to mention horrendously expensive. Poplar is a lot like birch. Not really a hardwood but definitely not a softwood. Most of the framing materials like 2x4's and heavy beams are made from evergreen trees like pine,spruce,fir, & cedar. You get about 70 years out of them and they tend to rot out and lose much of their strength.Wood borers get in so you get infestation problems as well. I would imagine that used wood would have to be fumigated before it's re-purposed.

From what i'm seeing in the building market the romance of " This Old House" gave way to the practical minded thinking of building new. In this area ... they often burn the old places flat to the ground and build new on the higher end jobs. The lower end jobs are almost all new manufactured housing these days.

Anyway ... those seem to be the trends in this area. Not much call for used stuff anymore. It might be entirely different in other parts of the country.

I'm in ky. The place I am talking about is tri-county metals. They are in burksville. Just outside of Columbia. Western ky. They have a website. Check it out. There is also other places in TN that buys it. Some places will come get it if u have enough. It's better money that scrapping. Just hard to find it anymore. All the junkies are hitting g barns in middle of night, stealing what they can.