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Wade told builders to expect “an amazing amount of trash when you go out and look for it.” The NAHB Research Center estimates that construction of a 2,000 square-foot house generates 8,000 pounds of trash, he added.
Wade found that cardboard and wood accounted for the majority of the rubbish coming off his sites; drywall was 11% of what went into the dumpster.
He started his mission of eliminating dumpsters altogether by reassessing how his homes were designed and switching over to Optimum Value Engineering wood framing. Framing his exterior walls with 2x6-inch studs, 24-inches on center and using a stacked-framing approach to eliminate an excessive number of headers reduced his wood waste by 40%.
Information on Optimum Value Engineering is available from the NAHB Research Center and Building Science Corp.
Wade’s next step was to purchase two Packer 750 grinders. Priced at $85,000, he said the grinders are able to handle a large volume of material, they are safe for workers, fairly easy to maintain and are capable of extracting about 95% of the nails that go into them. Nails are culled by a magnetic pulley and then spit into a bucket.
The grindings are mixed with cow manure and stockpiled for about two years until they become compost for topsoil, potting soil, football and baseball fields and other uses. The product sells for about $16 a yard. Wade gives away his grindings in exchange for having them hauled off.
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The largest local home builder in New Mexico, who builds some 800 homes a year at the affordable end of the market, told an audience at the Green Building Conference in Baltimore earlier this month that he is saving almost $285,000 a year on dumpsters by recycling his construction waste.
