Revealing the Hidden Connections: Housing Projects & Historic Forests
Posted on | February 24, 2010 | 3 Comments
By Summer Constantino
A condemned housing project is the last place you’d want to go hunting for treasure, literally or figuratively. Or is it?
Entering dilapidated buildings is not for the faint of heart. Ghosts seem to be behind every corner and the visual reality is best described as “hopelessly depressing”. But if you can shoo away that haunting feeling and look beyond the surfaces, Savannah Gardens is full of building materials awaiting a second life. My imagination has not run away from me; though you may have to redefine your perception of value in order to truly see what I’m talking about…
Every day building materials are sent to landfills, taking with them years of life yet to be lived. First, let’s consider the heart pine used to create the “backbone” or frame for each Savannah Gardens home. Old growth heart pine is nearing extinction. As experts like George Goodwin tell it, there used to be about 90 million acres of old growth heart pine in this country, but today there are less than 10,000 acres left (these acres of original-growth Longleaf pine tress are now protected). 41% of the entire landmass of the “deep south” was covered with heart pine, now it’s less than 2%. These hardwood trees only grow an inch in diameter every thirty years – do the math and you’ll figure out that it takes 500 years for heart pine to mature.
In its heyday heart pine was employed as a building material all over the southeast – as flooring in Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, Washington’s Mount Vernon, and buttressing the keel of the USS Constitution. It was used as flooring, joists and paneling for homes and factories, as well as timbers for bridges, warehouses, railroad cars and wharves. The resin from this wood was used in paints, soaps, weatherproofing products, shoe polish and medicines. Unfortunately, as is the case with so many of the Earth’s natural resources, humans have abused the privilege and clear-cut these forests to the brink of decimation. The only source we have of heart pine at this point is reclaiming them from existing structures.
Tugs at your heartstrings, doesn’t it? No? Well maybe those purse strings are a little more sensitive. Typically, reclaimed heart pine is sold for $9 to $12+ per square foot. Regular pine sells for $3 to $6 per square foot. That puts the heart pine’s simple dollar value at 2 to 3 times that of regular pine. Of course the cost of labor for reclamation plays a part in that cost, but the durability and historical value of heart pine is an added value that has nothing to do with dollars and much more to do with sense.
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3 Responses to “Revealing the Hidden Connections: Housing Projects & Historic Forests”
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March 6th, 2010 @ 6:44 PM
Could not agree more. Also…have you seen this blog? I was so thrilled to find it!
http://vanishingsouthgeorgia.wordpress.com/
Thanks!
-Haley
March 9th, 2010 @ 5:00 PM
Thanks for your kind comments, Haley! Glad you like my site.
Brian
April 2nd, 2010 @ 10:58 AM
Nice post Ms Constantino! It truly tugged at my heartstrings.