Deconstructing and reconstructing

By Kate Ramsayer / The Bulletin
Published: December 20. 2010 4:00AM PST
 
For Bend builder Paul Schmitz, the key to surviving the financial downturn has been thinking sustainably.
 
In addition to his building product supply company, Boxcar Productions, which deals in materials Schmitz has repurposed from buildings he has taken apart, he is constructing a house to use as little energy as possible and considering how to develop a sustainably minded community on a block in northwest Bend. As the building industry crashed in the last couple years, he decided to use an idle lot on that block to plant a garden and fruit trees, and try his hand at raising chickens, selling produce and eggs to local restaurants.
 
“I'm not crying the blues, I'm a very lucky guy. There's a lot of guys in my shoes that are dead in the water,” said Schmitz, 43. “The lesson in it for me — if you keep it sustainable, you'll probably be able to weather it through.”
 
One of his sustainability ventures involves taking down buildings and homes, and salvaging the materials — from lumber to railings to roofing — for use in other projects.
 
“We get some incredible products, so I can repurpose them and bring them back to life,” he said.
 
With the building industry's slowdown, builders are looking at new techniques or options, said Andy High, vice president of government affairs with the Central Oregon Builders Association.
 
“You're just seeing people getting creative,” High said. Some people are reclaiming wood from old barns, others are taking advantage of the slow times to figure out how to be more efficient in their trades, he said.
 
Schmitz's venture to reclaim building materials started earlier in 2001, when he began getting contracts with mills to take apart buildings no longer in use in Northern California and Oregon.
 
Other people looked at the big mill structures and were frightened by the size, Schmitz said.
 
“I saw all that wood, and the amazing opportunity,” he said.
 
He sold the lumber from the mill buildings to Japan, and up and down the West Coast, and with the money started buying the nine lots — some with existing houses, as well as an old lumber shed, on a block of Northwest Fresno Avenue, Schmitz said.
 
He also built a house on Northwest Davenport Avenue in Bend, orienting it to catch heat and light from the sun in a passive solar design, constructing it with many recycled materials.
 
The deconstruction business slowed down with the housing downturn, he said, and others got into the business as well.
 
“They're just trying to make a living, and everyone's trying to do the right thing,” Schmitz said.
 
And with piles of lumber and equipment on his property, Schmitz said the city of Bend told him he needed to start actually constructing or deconstructing something or face fines.
 
So, even though the timing was poor to start a building project, Schmitz got a permit and spent a year taking apart a house that was on one of the Fresno Avenue lots.
 
He got a building permit to start constructing a new house in summer 2008.
 
“I took the chance, starting this house,” he said.
 
The plan for the house incorporates passive solar designs, including south-facing windows and a cement floor that acts as a battery, storing heat during the summer and releasing it in the winter. On a cold day last week, the sunny front room was warm, even without insulation installed, and Schmitz remarked that he needed a thermometer to demonstrate how warm it was.
 
It's also designed to incorporate solar panels on its south-facing roof, both to generate electricity and to power a hot-water heater.
 
The goal is to get as close as possible to “net zero,” the point at which a building produces as much power as its occupants use — and to do so as simply as possible, Schmitz said.
 
“We have to look at development and construction in a different way,” he said.
 
And that goes for construction materials as well. Beams in the Fresno house have nail holes where, in a previous incarnation, they were attached to other pieces of lumber. Schmitz took some metalwork from a crane shed and turned it into the rail of the staircase — a beam salvaged from a single-wide trailer provides the base, and mahogany boards from a Lancair pallet will be fashioned into the steps themselves.
 
The caps of the stair railings also are mahogany, from railroad boxcars, after which Schmitz named his company.
 
Recession hits
 
But the house isn't finished yet — he didn't have the money to complete it. More than two years later, however, he has sold the house on Davenport Avenue and plans to use the proceeds to finish the residence on Fresno.
 
When the recession hit, he looked around to see what else he could do to be sustainable.
 
He had land next door to the Fresno house, he said. So, two years ago, he planted a garden, growing greens, carrots, potatoes, onions, Jerusalem artichokes and more. As late as last week, he still had the Jerusalem artichokes — a tuber — in the ground, as well as some carrots and hardy cabbage.
 
“The biggest thing I've gained from the slowdown was this garden,” he said.
 
And he and a friend started a business, called Fish Lips, selling fish caught that day on the Columbia River to restaurants.
 
“It's another sustainable business that has given me good opportunities,” he said, noting that they can only catch fish when Native American tribes and state Department of Fish and Wildlife biologists say the run is healthy enough.
 
Some businesses have picked up, but others have slowed down. He still restores old, decaying log homes, but that business isn't as busy as it was in the past, he said.
 
And although there have not been as many deconstruction projects, he has one coming up for a mill that involves taking apart three sheds that will produce 100,000 board feet of lumber and piles of tin roofing.
 
He's also thinking about what to do with the other properties on the Fresno block. Schmitz envisions a community where people have a stake in the garden, and know their neighbors — he doesn't want fences on the front of property, instead considering marking property by fruit trees, berry bushes or other natural elements.
 
He's thinking of smaller homes — that's what people need in this economy, he said — or maybe installing apartments in an old lumberyard building on one of the lots.
 
Schmitz said he wants to keep building, and building smarter, but also is attracted to new niches that could be a creative outlet.
 
“It's great because I end up doing these niche businesses, then everyone else starts to follow,” Schmitz said. “You're looking for that next thing.”