Components

The stage

Materials become components: a window, a stair, a wall panel, a cabinet. A component is the smallest piece of a building that still has a value of its own.

What the usual way assumes

That once a part is installed it disappears into the building. Nobody records what it is, and it is fastened so that taking it out destroys it or its neighbors.

What we do instead

Give every valuable part its own island. A window is fixed to a shop-built frame, called a buck, and the buck is screwed into the opening. Taking the window out becomes three steps, and the wall around it is untouched.

Write the part down while it is new: species, grade, size, finish, fastener, maker and date. That record is a material passport. Written at design, it costs almost nothing, and sixty years on it is the difference between a part and debris.

Where a permanent bond can’t be avoided, we push it inside the component. A factory-sealed panel is solid within, but the panel itself can be unbolted and used again.

What we don’t know yet

How to give a used part a grade. A sound salvaged joist has no stamp, so an engineer can’t calculate with it and an inspector can’t accept it. The wood is fine. The paperwork does not exist yet.