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Reharvesting Urban Timber

A century ago  it was unimaginable that there would ever be an end to what appeared to be an unlimited supply of timber. Due to a hundred years of clear cutting, short sighted forestry practices and poor forest stewardship  of America’s vast original forests,  only five percent of the orignal virgin forests remain. Today many of our forests are managed so that a consistent supply of timber  will always be available for future generations. However, the trees in these managed forests are never allowed to reach their full maturity.  Thus timber harvested this way will never match the quality of the material harvested from old growth forests that took centuries to grow. A century ago, high quality timber seemed so abundant that lower grade wood, which we consider standard today, was left behind on the forest floor.

Have you ever stopped to think what happened to all that high quality wood, the “Forgotten Forests”? Much of that material still surrounds us today in our homes, apartments and offices, but that’s not the end of the story… today, many structures, built with lumber produced by these virgin forests, are being removed to make way for new construction and the old lumber ends up in our landfills.

The Reclaimer specializes in recovering the high quality timber from those old growth forests by sourcing and removing it from entering the waste stream.  The Reclaimer sources wood throughout the US with a primary focus on the West Coast, working mainly on urban projects whereby we can deconstruct or  Reharvest Urban Timber. This means to find old growth timber slated to go to the landfill  that was utilized in buildings, barns, pickle vats, etc…  hand deconstructing it and and painstakingly denailing each board individually.   Why do this? Even if it’s the right thing to do, that isn’t enough to justify sound business practices. Our efforts produce a wood that is unparalleled; in fact, much of our lumber is of such superior quality to that produced in today’s managed forests that the category once used to grade it is no longer needed. If that weren’t enough, due to the aging process, our lumber is more stable than it’s counterpart, produced by kiln drying, and has developed rich patinas ranging from honey to chocolate brown, that cannot be reproduced at any cost. Forgiving a few nail holes has allowed us to offer you a product that will bring warmth and beauty into any environment where it is used.

There is still an enormous amount of work to do, but by using The Reclaimer’s Reharvested Urban Timber, you become a voluntary participant in ecologically sound environmental protection practices that will save natural resources from past and present forests, preventing landfills from being clogged and timber from being logged. You’ll also be rewarding yourself with a gift of unmatched quality that has stood the test of time and will continue to do so for generations to come.