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--- writing:deconstruction [2026/05/29 01:17] – JacobCoffinWrites
+++ writing:deconstruction [2026/07/04 22:04] (current) – [House Shifting - Building Salvage Without Deconstruction] JacobCoffinWrites
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 ====Deconstruction====
-[[https://www.epa.gov/large-scale-residential-demolition/reuse-and-recycling-opportunities-and-demolition|Deconstruction]] is an alternative to demolition. It means [[https://www.morrishabitat.org/programs/deconstruction|carefully dismantling the constructed components of a house (or other building) so the materials can be salvaged and reused]]. Materials are typically removed in the opposite order in which they were installed, to maximize reuse.
+[[https://www.epa.gov/large-scale-residential-demolition/reuse-and-recycling-opportunities-and-demolition|Deconstruction]] is an alternative to demolition. It involves [[https://www.morrishabitat.org/programs/deconstruction|carefully dismantling an entire building]] to salvage as many materials as possible. Materials are typically removed in the opposite order in which they were installed, to maximize reuse. These include high-value components, such as timber, windows, doors, flooring, fixtures, and structural elements.
+Unlike traditional demolition, which prioritises speed, deconstruction [[https://llnr.cdn.prismic.io/llnr/aigBHQeQX7-eXCXA_LLNR_CircularTimberResearchReport_DIGITAL.pdf|focuses on salvaging valuable materials to reduce waste and lower the demand for new raw resources]], thereby minimising environmental impact.
 A solarpunk society may have many reasons to disassemble a building. Generally reuse of existing structures (perhaps with retrofits for insulation, solar, etc) is much better than destruction but that's not always the case:
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   * The building may be part of car infrastructure which can't be easily repurposed, such as a parking garage. In this case, the building's footprint may be far more useful than its current structure.
   * The building may be structurally unsound and unsuitable enough for repurposing that it's hard to justify investing resources into repairs. Some buildings are just built incredibly cheaply and may not be designed to last more than a decade without a serious overhaul. [[https://mcmansionhell.com/|McMansions]] and other 'builder grade' new houses are infamous for their cheap construction, but strip malls and other commercial buildings can be similarly unsustainable.
-  * The location may be poor. Perhaps the building has been built on what used to be a train line which society is looking to return to use. Perhaps it's on a flood plain, a landslide-prone cliff, or [[https://www.theverge.com/features/861950/fire-resilient-home-neighborhood|recurrent wildfire area]] where it's likely to be destroyed anyways. Or perhaps society is just taking on a new shape - in present day, car-reliant exurban/rural areas, many residential buildings have been built an impractical distance from anything else. If cars become less practical and people rely more on trains and live in denser villages, these outlying buildings may eventually be abandoned.
+  * The location may be poor. Perhaps the building has been built on what used to be a train line which society is looking to return to use. Perhaps it's on a flood plain, a landslide-prone cliff, or [[https://www.theverge.com/features/861950/fire-resilient-home-neighborhood|recurrent wildfire area]] where it's likely to be destroyed anyways. Or [[exurbs_in_the_solarpunk_transition|perhaps society is just taking on a new shape]] - in present day, car-reliant exurban/rural areas, many residential buildings have been built an impractical distance from anything else. If cars become less practical and people rely more on trains and live in denser villages, these outlying buildings may eventually be abandoned.
     * The longer they’re left abandoned, the more they’ll degrade. The structures will become unsafe, the materials will rot or break, or become inaccessible, and in some cases, they’ll pose environmental risks as fuel tanks rust out, chemicals escape their storage, or damaged structures catch fire (even with the powerlines cut upstream, abandoned solar panels or poorly-isolated generators backfeeding into the grid might allow for damage to an abandoned house to cause a fire). This is especially true with modern buildings, particularly the kind of cheap new houses and McMansions with their heavy reliance on petro-products like “structural” foam columns and facades, which will go up like a struck match.
     * Weather, encroaching water, mold, ice, and animals can all cause compounding damage to empty buildings surprisingly fast.
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 If a building is in good shape, and is a design suitable for relocation, its possible to save even more labor and energy and simply [[https://www.dalbyremovalhomes.com.au/2025/12/22/eco-friendly-removal-homes/|move the entire structure]]. This would be useful in any circumstance where the structure itself isn't the problem - perhaps it's just sitting on a floodplain, in a predicted wildfire zone, or in the way of a new train route or on a spot where denser housing could be constructed. This practice isn't unique to Australia, but it seems to be more established there than anywhere else I've seen. They have [[https://houseremovalandrecycling.blogspot.com/2011/02/house-storage-yards-good-bad-and-ugly.html?m=1|entire lots]] for what they call Relocatable or [[https://drakeremovalhomes.com.au/what-is-a-removal-home/|Removal homes]], essentially functioning as a thrift store for old houses. Rows of Queenslanders, Colonials, and postwar houses, each up on jacks, sit in jumbled rows waiting to be bought and relocated to a new site.
 {{:writing:img_4861.jpg?200&direct}} {{:writing:img_4860.jpg?200&direct}} {{:writing:img_4866.jpg?200&direct}} {{:writing:img_4863.jpg?200&direct}} {{:writing:img_4864.jpg?200&direct}} {{:writing:img_4862.jpg?200&direct}}
 [[https://www.queenslandhouseremovers.com.au/understanding-the-house-removal-process-a-comprehensive-guide/|This process]] looks something like this:
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 === Other Vehicle Options for House Shifting ===
-In the modern day house shifting is usually done using large trucks, and the size of each section of house moved is constrained by width the road. This adds quite a bit of work around cutting up the building, preparing the pieces to survive the journey, and reassembling them at their destination.
+In the modern day house shifting is usually done using large trucks, and the size of each section of house moved is constrained by width the road. ([[https://nypost.com/2026/03/18/us-news/house-being-transported-on-north-carolina-highway-creates-unusual-traffic-jam/|Here's an example]] of a house being just small enough to be moved in one piece). This adds quite a bit of work around cutting up the building, preparing the pieces to survive the journey, and reassembling them at their destination.
 **Shifting Houses by Barge**
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 **Shifting Houses by Airship**
-It's also worth noting that transporting this type of bulky cargo overland is the exact type of work modern [[https://www.flying-whales.com/en/home/|'flying crane']] airships propose to take on. It would take quite a bit of preparation (including inspections, structural improvements, jacking it up off the foundation and attaching it to a special platform or frame), but it's possible that these airships could transport suitable buildings the same way they propose to transport wind turbine blades, by lifting them by the winch and caring them along outside the ship just under the keel. This might even simplify the shifting process - the frame would still have to be supported from underneath, but buildings transported by air might need far less disassembly, and structures which weren't suitable for piecemeal transportation on a truck might do fine when lifted as one big, intact piece. This could mean that a solarpunk society could relocate more buildings than we can today.
+It's also worth noting that transporting this type of bulky cargo overland is the exact type of work modern [[https://www.flying-whales.com/en/home/|'flying crane']] airships propose to take on. It would take quite a bit of preparation (including inspections, structural improvements, jacking it up off the foundation and attaching it to a special platform or frame), but it's possible that these airships could transport suitable buildings the same way they propose to transport other bulky cargoes, by lifting them up on cables until they're inside the cargo hold.  This might even simplify the shifting process - the frame would still have to be supported from underneath, but buildings transported by air might need far less disassembly, and structures which weren't suitable for piecemeal transportation on a truck might do fine when lifted as one big, intact piece. This could mean that a solarpunk society could relocate more buildings than we can today.
+A suitable airship might look a bit like the [[https://www.flying-whales.com/en/the-lca60t/|LCA60T]], with a shorter, wider cargo hold. The current design is optimized for wind turbine parts, modular buildings, shipping containers, log timber, and other cargoes with a similar form factor, but the structure/shape of the hold could vary somewhat as long as the volume remains the same. The LCA60T has a planned payload of 60 tons, the average stick frame house minus its foundation [[https://www.eng-tips.com/threads/how-much-does-a-residential-house-weigh.463864/|appears to clock in around 155 pounds per square foot]] so if I did my math right a two story house that absolutely fills the hold (with a footprint around 776 square feet) would weigh just a little more than max payload (60.14 tons) but realistically both would be reduced for practical reasons. Of course, the LCA60T isn't the ultimate possible airship - payload and hold size can both be scaled up with larger airships - there are several designs on the books which aren't intended for use as flying cranes which demonstrate a much larger capacity.
+The [[https://lynceans.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Lockheed-Martin_Ultra-large-rigid-hybrid-airships.pdf|Lockheed-Martin Rigid Airship concept]] from the 1990s and early 2000s had a cargo bay 250 feet by 260 feet, nearly square. It had a planned 500-ton payload but that's while using a mix of aerodynamic lift and buoyant lift (basically the whole structure is intended to glide like a plane while also floating from the lift gas). In slow moving flying crane operations, this would probably look more like a 200-300 ton payload while in VTOL.
+The [[https://lynceans.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Boeing-Megalifter.pdf|Boeing Megalifter concept from the 1970s]] had a cargo bay 40 feet wide and 40 feet tall, and about as long as the LCA60T’s. Its max payload was around 100 tons though again that includes aerodynamic lift. Without that, it's payload would be around 40-60% max.
 === Outcomes From House Shifting Becoming More Common ===