Three numbers per item, and only one of them is the obvious one
Every salvage decision is the same sum. What the item is worth once it is out, plus the disposal you no longer pay for, minus the extra hours it takes to remove it intact. The first number is the one people think about. The third is the one that decides it, and the second is the one nobody counts at all.
Take the default kitchen. Twenty linear feet of cabinets at $25 a foot is $500 of value. At six extra minutes a foot that is two hours, which at $35 an hour is $70. The cabinets weigh about 600 pounds, which at $75 a ton is $22.50 of disposal avoided. Net $452.50, and $261.25 an hour for the extra time. That line is not a close call.
Now the lumber. Two hundred board feet at $1.50 is $300, and at 0.6 minutes a board foot it is two hours, or $70 of labour. Five hundred pounds is $18.75 of disposal. Net $248.75, and $159.38 an hour. Also worth doing, but noticeably less so, and de-nailing is the part that gets abandoned first when the day runs long.
The disposal saving is small and it is not the point
Across all four default lines the material weighs 1,514 pounds, which is 0.76 tons, which at $75 a ton is $56.78. Against $1,200 of resale value that is nothing. It becomes interesting only in one situation: when it is the difference between one container pull and two. A saving of half a ton is worth almost nothing per ton and worth an entire pull charge if it lands on the right side of the allowance. That is why the pull calculation is separate from the per-ton one, and why it reports honestly when the saving is real but does not cross the line.
Rank, do not total
| Line | Return per extra hour | Against a $35 hour |
|---|---|---|
| Cabinets, 20 lf | $261.25 | Clearly worth it |
| Lumber, 200 bf | $159.38 | Worth it, if the day allows |
| Doors and windows, 6 | $125.07 | Worth it |
| Fixtures, 8 | $82.70 | Marginal at higher labour rates |
The totals line tells you the job is worth doing. The ranking tells you what to do first and what to stop doing at four in the afternoon. Those are different pieces of information and the second is more useful, because deconstruction is almost never carried out completely and the question is always which half gets done.
What makes an item come out whole
Fasteners, mostly. A cabinet run screwed to a cleat comes off in boxes; one nailed and glued to the wall comes off in pieces. Trim that was installed with finish nails releases; trim that was glued does not. Framing assembled with nails can be pulled apart, framing with structural screws or glued and nailed sheathing usually cannot be. None of this is visible until you start, which is why the extra-minutes fields are the ones to revise after the first hour rather than to trust from the start.
Painted material is its own question and not a small one. A painted door out of a pre-1980 house is a lead paint question before it is a salvage question, and no resale value makes that go away. The same applies to anything with a coating you cannot identify.
What this does not model
Storage, transport to a buyer, the time spent listing and meeting people, and the very real possibility that the material sits in a garage for two years and then gets thrown away anyway. Salvage that has no destination is deferred disposal with extra steps. Before entering a value, know who is taking it. The debris hauling trips calculator covers what happens to everything that is not salvaged, the remodel debris calculator produces the total tonnage this page needs, and if you are pricing the deconstruction for somebody else the job cost and markup calculator takes the labour hours from here.
Questions people ask
Is deconstruction worth it instead of demolition?
It depends almost entirely on the labour rate and on whether the material has a buyer. At $35 an hour, cabinets that return $261.25 an hour of extra work are obvious and fixtures at $82.70 an hour are marginal. At $80 an hour half the list stops making sense. Run your own numbers rather than accepting a general answer, and read the ranking rather than the total, because it is normal for one line to carry the whole result.
How much is reclaimed lumber worth?
Whatever a buyer near you will pay, which is the only figure worth entering. What the calculator can tell you is how much your own price has to be to justify the hours: at 0.6 minutes a board foot and $35 an hour, the labour alone is 35 cents a board foot, so anything under about 50 cents is not paying for the nail pulling. Old-growth material and long clear lengths are a different market from ordinary studs and the gap between them is large.
Does salvaging really save on disposal?
Per ton, barely. The default job keeps 0.76 tons out of the container, which at $75 a ton is $56.78. The saving becomes significant only when it removes a whole container pull, which is a step change rather than a gradual one, and the calculator works that out separately because it either happens or it does not.
Can I claim a tax deduction for donating salvaged materials?
That is a question for a tax professional and for the organisation receiving the material, not for a calculator. It depends on the receipt they issue, on how the value is established, and on rules that change. This page counts only what you expect to actually receive in cash, so enter zero on anything you intend to donate and treat the tax side as a separate conversation with somebody qualified.
What should I not try to salvage?
Anything painted in a building old enough for lead to be a question, until that question has been answered by testing. Anything you cannot identify the coating on. Anything requiring a wall to be opened up before you know what the wall carries, which is an engineer question and not a salvage one. And anything with no buyer, because material that goes into storage instead of into a container is disposal you have postponed and paid for twice.