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100% recycled roof shingles (50% recycled wood from pallets, 50% recycled waste plastics). These are Eco-Shakes, from ReNew Wood, Inc. They have a 50 year guarantee and a Class A fire rating.
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(above) Salvaged tiles for the kitchen floor. These inch-thick paver tiles were collected over two decades ago, and have been just waiting to find a home! |
The kitchen features durable composite countertops from old laboratory tables (above) |
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(below) Kitchen cabinets are reused from a downtown office building that was being demolished. We sealed all exposed particle board surfaces with AFM's SafeSeal to prevent offgassing of formaldehyde.
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Click
to see photos of the (almost) finished kitchen...
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The use of porous paving helps to reduce the amount of impervious surface created for vehicles that contributes to runoff, flooding and other water quality problems in our cities. |
For the portion of the driveway that crosses the front yard (a zone where the City of Madison does not allow regular parking), we've used porous pavers reused from a local source (left). Other pavers available are made from recycled plastic. The pavers are placed on the same compacted sub-base of gravel used under conventional paving. Then the cores are filled with a mixture of soil, sand and grass seed. The paving units are designed to support the weight of the vehicle while preventing the grass roots from becoming compacted. |
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(below) We carefully removed the asbestos-containing siding from the old house. It has plenty of life left, and it holds paint very well. So instead of sending it to the landfill, we re-used it for the upper walls of the new house, carefully cutting as needed without creating dust.  |
(above) Before the excavation, we saved these old sections of concrete slab from the original walk. We've re-used them as a new flagstone path and in the driveway as two 'parking runners' under vehicle tires, with a grass strip in between. In doing so we save the fee to haul them away and the cost of new concrete, as well as avoid adding to the landfill. Just as importantly, we create less impervious surface too. |
(above) These antique carved stone sections of Kasota Stone from Minnesota (an old "de-commissioned" communion rail from a nearby church) will be cleaned and re-used as beautiful front porch railings |
(above) When we raised the little original house, we discovered that it had rested on piles of stones. We'll re-use the old foundation stones for landscaping terraces and borders |
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Site-built roof trusses allow the use of recycled lumber. Ours are professionally engineered and use glued-and-nailed plywood gusset plates (left).  |
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(above) So far we've only needed a dumpster once (a 6-yarder), for the roofing from the original house, and bits of plywood and other items. We've not been successful in finding anyone local who will take the asphalt shingles for recycling into road asphalt. |
Salvaged sinks for the kitchen & workroom (above) Construction waste....We recycle all the construction materials we can via Madison's very good curbside pick-up program, for materials such as cardboard, steel (strapping, damaged nails, miscellaneous ferrous metal) and so on. We'll burn wood scraps for heat this winter. We've been able to use all solid, inert materials, such as broken bricks, stones and cementitious waste, as fill and landscaping elements. Locally we can recycle polystyrene (insulation, packaging) at Brown Sales Co., 401 Rossmeyer Street, Madison, WI 608/ 271-5498 |
