Remodel Reclaiming An Eco Friendly Business

While you could charge a relatively small daily, or per-project, fee to the renovators needing items disposed of, your service will make the largest percentage of its income through reselling the items that you collect on these remodel reclaiming trips.

Believe it or not! There is a huge market for older or 'vintage' toilets, bathtubs, sinks, cabinetry, refrigerators, stoves, and so on. You can resell the items that are in relatively good shape to salvage yards or sell them yourself to homeowners or designers who want to perform 'green renovations'. These 'green renovations' are projects that do not use new materials when existing appliances or other materials are available. In addition to people wishing to use materials that have not been newly produced, so that there is less impact on the environment, there is a growing retro remodel reclaiming movement where people wish to duplicate the look and feel of bathrooms and kitchens of bygone eras. There are also artisans who wish to build interesting, creative items from salvaged materials. Some of the items that can be constructed from miscellaneous discarded items retrieved from old bathrooms and other remodel reclaiming adventures include cold frames for gardening, small storage sheds, and sculptural art.

What will you need to get your service off the ground? First, you should have a reliable vehicle that is capable of hauling away the discarded items, including any items or building materials that cannot be reused and must be taken to the local garbage facility. For heavy larger items like bathtubs and stoves, you will likely want to bring along someone to help you load and unload the items.

If you want to pursue selling these items yourself (which will likely prove more profitable than selling them to a salvage yard), you will want to have a large storage area available for all your remodel reclaiming items.

Depending on the size of your business, it might be profitable to rent a warehouse to store and display your newly acquired treasures. If you are just getting your service off the ground and do not have the resources to obtain a warehouse, you will be just as well served to rent a storage unit. This will keep your reclaimed treasures in the best shape possible and will allow you a little bit of workspace, should you want to make repairs on any of the items you will be selling.

Be prepared to make at least one or two trips to your local garbage facility for items and materials that are destroyed, or just beyond salvage, per project. Most garbage facilities charge a fee per trip, load size, or per pound. Be sure that whatever you are charging to dispose of items will cover your transportation and disposal costs.

Remember that even if the cabinetry being removed from a renovation site is not salvageable, often the fixtures, sinks, toilets, cabinet handles, tiles, and other items can be reused in another project. To increase their value, you may want to invest a little time and 'elbow grease' refinishing wood cabinets or repainting cupboards or cabinetry that is made of lesser quality materials. How will you reach your renovators and people looking to purchase and re-purpose materials? You will first want to advertise locally that you will pick up and dispose of materials related to kitchen and bathroom renovations. By keeping your prices relatively low, you will be able to collect a larger array of items for resale.

Next, to reach the people who want to purchase your salvage, you will want to advertise locally and online. By creating an internet storefront, you can show pictures of the items that you have remodel reclaimed from bathroom and other renovations, which will increase the exposure that they receive. You could organize your items, so that your buyers could search for a specific item by type, color, or era, since many of your potential customers will be wanting to perform renovations involving the re-creation of a specific era.

Your website might also include ideas for including these kinds of materials in projects and retro renovations. It could include vintage advertisements that featured these very same materials in the kind of color scheme that they were created for. This could really increase excitement over your materials and generate more business for you.

You could also include directions for creating small mudrooms or half-baths for people wishing to inexpensively as possible add onto their homes. You would likely want to link to other websites that encourage the use of salvaged materials. You might also want to advertise or sell books that teach people how to install these kinds of items themselves or that teach people to build things from salvaged items, using step-by-step instructions. There are many publications like this on the market. You can even link to these items on amazon.com for additional revenue.

By registering your website with popular search engines and various online business directories, you will reach a larger number of customers. Be sure to register with organizations and web-rings online that promote the use of "vintage," "retro," and "reclaimed" items from the past. Again, this will increase your exposure to your target audience and will cost you almost nothing, except your time.

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