VANCOUVER, Wash. – Old barns have special appeal for Jim Riedl.
There’s history. The economic value of hand-hewn beams fashioned from old-growth timber. And, Riedl says, there’s mystery.
A darkened, cool barn takes him back to his own childhood on a Wisconsin farm.
“My grandparents’ barn gave us kids a place to make hay tunnels, to swing on ropes,” Riedl said. “When you’re inside a barn, you have to think of everything that transpired in them … the work, the stories of the people who built it.”
That’s why Riedl, who lives in Ridgefield, admits to mixed feelings about the recycling business he’s started.
Called Northwest Barn Recyclers Inc., Riedl and a crew of four contract with property owners to remove barns 60 years or older. The typical agreement means taking the barn down for free, removing nails from the wood, carting off the salvaged materials for sorting and resale, and discarding the rest.
So far, Riedl, who operates a separate business called Tradewinds Construction that installs retail store fixtures, has dismantled three barns. The most recent was a faded red barn on Etna Road in north Clark County that was built in the early 1900s.
Over a couple of weeks, the siding came off, then the roof, and after that the posts and beams came down.
The barn was no longer serving a useful purpose. The owner wanted it down so he could use the site for more pasture, Riedl said.
Finding barns to dismantle, however, is a tricky business, with every deal unique.
Some barns are too rickety and dangerous to tear down.
Others don’t have much salvage value.
Some owners think they’re worth more than they really are, Riedl said.
While there is a resurgence of buyer interest in barn material, it’s a matter of connecting the buyer with the material he or she wants.
David Sacia, a Wisconsin dealer who has been in the business since 1998, said finding the market is every recycler’s challenge.
“The idea of recycling something, reusing something, is on the upswing,” said Sacia, who operates Old-Barn-Wood.com and Reclaimed-lumber.com. “The national market is being driven by people who are building $1 million-and-up homes, many of them second and third residences. Most of the sales are coming off the Internet.”
Buyers typically use Internet search words such as “reclaimed” or “old barn wood” or “reclaimed flooring” to find sellers.
Finding the barns is a bit easier.
Riedl, who doesn’t yet have a Web presence, has been advertising in the Capital Press, an Oregon-based regional agricultural newspaper.
So far, he has lined up six more barns for demolition, from Colfax, in southeastern Washington, to Madras, Ore.
“I don’t feel particularly great about taking down barns, but in many cases they would otherwise end up as a pile of kindling, either because of development or the weather,” he said. “There was an old barn near Jolly’s restaurant at NE 178th Street and I-5 that just got knocked into a pile of rubble. That was too bad.”
After being popular in the 1970s, demand for old barn wood faded until the past few years.
Now, buyers in places such as California and Florida, and vacation spots throughout the West, are converting barn siding to interior flooring and one-of-a-kind furniture pieces. Rough-hewn beams are being used in exposed interior design.
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