reclaimation yards.

[robgil]

i guess this is a moan more than anything else , but why do reclamation yards charge so much?
in this day and age we should be encouraged to recycle old buildings that have met the end of their life yet these yards just seem to make this stupidly expensive.
old quarry tiles costing three times as much as new ones and dont mention the price of used norfolk pamments :shock:
but what really got my goat up today was spotting an old butler sink on a wooden stand , the stand was basically a small table , the price tag? 450 quid + vat. :shock:
do people actually buy this stuff?

 

[yamin]

Well, why would you want an old manky sink when you could have a nice shiny new one for £125 from B and Q??? :lol: :lol:

No, I agree, its ridiculous. I think alongside those who ar serious about lovingly restoring properties are a whole raft of people who want to 'buy in' period features, and they drive the price up. Supply demand I guess. Hear so many stories from my parents generation of picking things up cheap at house sales or in junk shops, but its the same with that, you just can't get those things anymore!

 

[CHRIS]

I agree, we went to the Salvo fair last weekend and people were charging stupid amounts for real rubbish - a bloke wanted £70 for the inside of an old washing machine that would have made a nice plant pot!!! I told him he was a greedy T^&T and could keep his stuff.

It is getting stupid the prices people want - there was still loads of stuff on the Sunday and the dealers were still not budging, I bet they had a lot to take back home?

 

[Flyfisher]

People must be buying.
The dealers probably saw them coming: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AGSMJojAM4&feature=related

 

[Cloudscape]

:shock: I'd never seen that before. It's nasty, but I've definitely heard/seen buyers like that in action - and encountered dealers who give the impression of hoping that you're thick and well off.

Humble but ridiculously expensive. :lol:

 

[Pford75]

I completely agree on the crazy prices.

Having been working on the dilapedated greenhouse I posted pics of a couple of weeks back, I removed all of the ivy and then relaid the top few courses of brickwork. Since we are not in a position to reinstate the greenhouse right now, I just wanted some coping to sit on top of the double skinned wall (one brick skin, one flint skin, rubble infill) since part of the previous problem was mortar being washed away.

At my local reclamaition yard, I found a metal crate of suitable coping...completely overgrown and hidden by weeds. Not only had it been there probably more than 2 years, I suspect the owner had forgotten he even had it. By my rough calculations, the basket would have been enough coping (allowing for breakages) to do the job.....he wanted £1850! With some bargaining, he dropped to £1600 but no further. Bearing in mind that decorative coping from B&Q would have cost in the region of £200, I simply couldn't afford to buy it. In the end, I opted to use some clay tiles I had in my barn and I think the result is better than what I had hoped for. It also ties in more effectively with the walled garden which uses the same tiles under coping to throw water away from the clay lump wall.

But speaking with my business head on, I simply don't understand their business model. I can understand that items they have invested time and money in restoring require premium prices (another local yard sells pressure-tested, stripped & polished rads for example). But items like this have probably been picked up as part of a job lot dirt cheap, they have not spent any money on maintenance, storage is an overgrown field somewhere and I don't buy the 'demand' argument since they had clearly sat there for a long, long time. Perhaps the view is that since it doesn't cost anything to store them and they are probably appreciating in value (as old items become more scarce), they don't see the need to drop their prices as long as they are making enough a week to live on. But, yes it is frustrating.

 

[Lime]

While I can understand the dislike of high prices, what is the alternative?
....Prices so low that no one salvages the parts or holds them in stock.
Gone are the days where a bit-of-business was done "on the side", the EU, tax and VAT men have seen to that.

 

[CHRIS]

People must be buying.
The dealers probably saw them coming: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AGSMJojAM4&feature=related

You know I sound just like that lady!!!!!!

 

[briany]

I've scratched my head over the architectural salvage business model on several occasions also, and the best I can come up with is that there are possibly considerable time/labour costs involved in recovering old architectural features without breakage. Quarry tiles/pammets, for example, are a serious challenge to remove once they've been in-situ for a century or two. Certainly cheaper to buy new original features that, while they may still be more labour-intensive than cheap mass-produced replicas, still take advantage of modern mechanised production to reduce costs.
Which, of course, reinforces the argument that we shouldn't be purchasing from reclamation/salvage yards anyway, and instead supporting those businesses that supply new, quality materials that allow us to replace like for like when necessary rather than promoting the destruction of period properties for profit, not to mention confusing authentic period features with ones transplanted from somewhere else. But that's another kettle of fish.
B

 

[chuckey]

Look for second hand timber yards. You have to poke about in an awful load of junk but IF they have what you want or fancy, prices are reasonable.
Frank

 

[AMc]

Not sure I follow your argument with this one. I've had to buy some reclaimed slate and some reclaimed pamments to complete parts of my renovation. I ended up paying £2 each for 12" by 24" 'wide duchess' welsh slates which was no more expensive than Chinese slate, granted one supplier quoted £6+VAT :0 but scouring Salvo web and ringing the reclamation yards worked in the end.

I needed 16 9"x9" pamments to finish the vinery floor - having personally lifted >500 and broken only about 10 I was annoyed to 'need' them in the first place, but after an hour on the phone and half an hour in a local reclaimation yard I found 18 decent buff salmons with 4 good edges at £3 a pop (I also got 2 bright reds that were so dirty we couldn't tell until we pressure washed them so always buy a bit more than you think you need.

I wouldn't really expect reclaimed to be cheaper than new - there are no economies of scale, some stuff sits in the yard for years without being needed.

I believe that if you turn up in nice clothes and a posh car you're going to get charged a premium. If you turn up in builders clothes and boots - if needs be park round the corner - and look like trade you get better prices. I also found a smile and handshake when you get there make it harder for them to look you in the eye and fleece you if they think you'll be back they're easier to work with. I have heard the prices can go down if you use folding money and don't need them to bother writing out a receipt but I've never experienced that myself of course.

 

[Feltwell]

In my experience building materials, such as bricks, slates, roof tiles etc can be had quite cheaply - I've sourced some stock bricks for my garage that are around half the price of buying new, similarly I know where I can pick up secondhand plain clay tiles for about 19p each, which is cheaper than new. Shop around though, some yards were asking up to 35p a tile.

There are companies out there who only deal in building materials, not fittings - they tend to be much cheaper (near me at least) than those who advertise as "salvage" and sell all the fittings such as doors, fireplaces, railings, floor tiles etc.

Whilst such yards are great fun to poke around in, they do seem to be full of fairly affluent middle-class types as customers and the prices seem to reflect that. I quite fancied an old cast iron toilet cistern in a yard near me - until I was told it was £350! :shock: It was tatty and in need of attention as well.

Whereas the yards that deal only in reclaimed building materials tend to be more a dirt yard, or if you're lucky concrete, out on a farm or industrial estate with a tatty Portacabin as an office - customers are more your local builders and prices reflect that.

 

[Lime]

I wouldn't really expect reclaimed to be cheaper than new - there are no economies of scale, some stuff sits in the yard for years without being needed.

I believe that if you turn up in nice clothes and a posh car you're going to get charged a premium. If you turn up in builders clothes and boots - if needs be park round the corner - and look like trade you get better prices. I also found a smile and handshake when you get there make it harder for them to look you in the eye and fleece you if they think you'll be back they're easier to work with. I have heard the prices can go down if you use folding money and don't need them to bother writing out a receipt but I've never experienced that myself of course.

In my experience building materials, such as bricks, slates, roof tiles etc can be had quite cheaply - I've sourced some stock bricks for my garage that are around half the price of buying new, similarly I know where I can pick up secondhand plain clay tiles for about 19p each, which is cheaper than new. Shop around though, some yards were asking up to 35p a tile.

There are companies out there who only deal in building materials, not fittings - they tend to be much cheaper (near me at least) than those who advertise as "salvage" and sell all the fittings such as doors, fireplaces, railings, floor tiles etc.

Whilst such yards are great fun to poke around in, they do seem to be full of fairly affluent middle-class types as customers and the prices seem to reflect that. I quite fancied an old cast iron toilet cistern in a yard near me - until I was told it was £350! It was tatty and in need of attention as well.

Whereas the yards that deal only in reclaimed building materials tend to be more a dirt yard, or if you're lucky concrete, out on a farm or industrial estate with a tatty Portacabin as an office - customers are more your local builders and prices reflect that.

I agree with both points being made.

Dressing for the part and not behaving as if all this is a jolly good weaze (What ho! Don't you know!) helps the price down.
Similarly, shopping around may produce many dividends, not least to find other items that you had given up on, as well as a reduced price.
Buying new is not an alternative at all as modern replicas never quite follow the old pattern.

It all depends on what you want the old parts for.
I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with buying parts for repair or topping up.
It is quite another to expect to replicate antiquity with an entire new build using old materials especially if the items were never installed in the first place.

 

[JoceAndChris]

I thought reclamation was expensive when I used to visit the yards in the South East. But here they bargain you down, the prices are fantastic and everyone is open to offers even if I'm in my pearls and Hunters. I shouldn't really tell you that, you'll all be flocking up to Horncastle and there'll be nothing left!

It all depends on what you want the old parts for.
I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with buying parts for repair or topping up.
It is quite another to expect to replicate antiquity with an entire new build using old materials especially if the items were never installed in the first place.

Is it really so wrong to have a folly in the garden, a postbox at the gate, a font in the hall? I agree it would be wrong to say, rip out the original cottage doors and replace with carved oak, but if not damaging or altering the original fabric of the building these things are there to have fun with as well as to conserve.

 

[Lime]

I thought reclamation was expensive when I used to visit the yards in the South East. But here they bargain you down, the prices are fantastic and everyone is open to offers even if I'm in my pearls and Hunters. I shouldn't really tell you that, you'll all be flocking up to Horncastle and there'll be nothing left!

That all depends on what the local area is usually prepared and able to pay.
You make comparisons betwwen the afluent south east and relatively poor (financally) Lincolnshire.
You may think the prices are cheap but I bet the locals think you are paying way over the odds.

It all depends on what you want the old parts for.
I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with buying parts for repair or topping up.
It is quite another to expect to replicate antiquity with an entire new build using old materials especially if the items were never installed in the first place.

Is it really so wrong to have a folly in the garden, a postbox at the gate, a font in the hall? I agree it would be wrong to say, rip out the original cottage doors and replace with carved oak, but if not damaging or altering the original fabric of the building these things are there to have fun with as well as to conserve.

I didn't intend my comments to refer to follies and using old material for ornament other than for their purpose.
They have their place if tastefully done, but many follies/decorative features are built with cement which damns the materials for eternity.

 

[robgil]

i went to my local yard this week for a look , the main reason for their high prices was partly because a lot of the stuff comes from france. not a great way to recycle if you have to transport thousands of tons of tiles from france on lorries and ferry's.
they were asking over 120 quid for a square meter of york stone though. :shock:

 

[JoceAndChris]

I didn't intend my comments to refer to follies and using old material for ornament other than for their purpose.
They have their place if tastefully done, but many follies/decorative features are built with cement which damns the materials for eternity.

I quite agree. Cement is the work of the devil.