I see your point James (and by the way, I think you are running a really great forum here).

It seems that we demolition contractors get blamed (i) for tearing down the building in the first place and (ii) for trashing all the supposedly salvagable artifacts in the process.

Really, it is the owner of the building who decides to destroy it. We just carry out the instructions, and as I've said before, if one demo guy won't do it, there is always another waiting to come along who will wreck any building.

Second, as to the salvagable artifacts, it is hard to save them when the building is coming down. First, a lot of the stuff is in bad shape and breaks anyhow. I had some people wanting to save some corinthian columns on the outside of an old building I was doing, and they were just amazed to find out that they were plaster, and fell apart in your hands. They thought it was some kind of marble, like from the Parthenon.

Second, as you point out, there is a big time constraint to get the building down quickly, and don't forget, safely.

Third, there is simply not always a buyer, and often no place to store the materials. If someone is there to buy it on the spot, I usually can try to accomodate them provided there is time in the demo schedule.

Again, great forum here, James. Keep it up, man.

That's good. Most demo contractors nowadays find it's cheaper just to trash the stuff. Not really worth saving it. Consequently, a lot of really neat stuff just gets crushed up in the process.

I'm glad you are able to get some of it into the hands of people who can re-use it.

Do you find you make money doing it? Or is it just to preserve the stuff?

That's a great idea. Do you usually try to sell stuff like that out of a building before you come in and wreck it?