We have an old barn that was built in the early to mid 1900 and we no longer use it and were looking for someone who would be willing to dismantel it on a percentage so the wood and beams could be reused we would like to build a house and use the rafters and other boards are in great shape but noone around here does that unless it costs an arm and a leg or they dont want to be careful to save as many of the boards as possible or they want to take all the lumber any help would be great Karen Meyer

Have you tried these guys?

http://wisconsinbarnboardandbeam.com/

Probably not going to happen - you have too many 'givens' in there.

You can get the barn torn down by somebody who will carefully reclaim the wood. But they will keep all or almost all the wood as the price for their labors.

You can get the barn torn down by somebody who will carefully reclaim the wood. And you will get to keep all or most of the wood. You will also be charged a lot for the labor to carefully tear down the barn.

You are just not going to get both. Hiring someone to do a project that is going to take a lot of time is going to cost - either in the wood itself or in money. It's not fair to expect anything less. About the only way I could see having the wood carefully removed at a 'reasonable' price would be if you found a skilled guy who is out of work and willing to work cheap.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Jaybee,

One more possible option, is if you contract the house builder to also include a bid on the dismantling of wood and reuse thereof, with very, very clear contingencies. A contigency, for eg, is if you choose to use beams as seen in the barn, and the bid includes using beams of this size and type in the drawings. However, if the beam is bad, then you buy one a new as a replacement, or pay to have the drawings redone not using the beam(s). But, this can get expensive bc surprises usually cost the person paying, and frustrate the ones building.

To conclude, you have to run some numbers on what it will cost to reclaim the old wood vs what it would cost buying it new, integrated into the costs of the drawings either way. FInally, if you had some pictures of the wood from the interior, it might help us to give you a more concise opinion.

Good luck,
tstex

This message has been edited. Last edited by: tstex,