Southern Alberta male salvages joist from 26 aged pellet elevators and builds 5,000 sq. ft. home
The old, wooden pellet elevators that used to dot Canada’s prairies have been solemnly disappearing, as many have outlived their utility and are being blown up, burnt and destroyed.
But a Bragg Creek, Alta. woodworker has, rather accidentally, become a saviour for this timber.
Doug Ward has now discovered 26 elevators’ value of joist from a throw heap, turning it into all from benches and tables to his personal 5,000-square-foot home.
Roughly half of Doug Ward’s residence is done from joist salvaged from a Vulcan pellet elevator. (Monty Kruger/CBC)
Roughly half of his home is repurposed joist from a pellet conveyor that used to be in Vulcan, Alta. The other half is a rumble from identical structures that once stood during several places opposite a province.
Part construction, partial history
Ward doesn’t mind that a well-spoken wooden panels that contain his home bear signs of dirty from steel screws and supports. He appreciates a combined character.
“That pellet using over a joist combined some extraordinary patterns,” Ward remarked. “It discriminating it. It carved out a soothing joist and left a tough joist standing, and done it demeanour like sea patterns and stuff,” he said.
“The fibre of this can’t be replicated,” he asserted.
Doug Ward bought a Vulcan pellet conveyor joist from a friend, who was obliged for a demolition. (Paul Karchut/CBC)
Beyond a esthetic, Ward prizes a ancestral member of a wood.
“If we go behind to when this was a sapling, this would’ve been someday in a late 1600s,” Ward said, gesturing to a plank.
“Then it grew for 300 years, and afterwards we cut it down and built a pellet elevator,” he remarked.
“I consider we miss history. We kinda don’t know ourselves, since we’re so immature here in this nation — in relations terms, during least.
“When we can bond with something that has history, that tells a bit of that story, afterwards infrequently a hunting, a finding, is partial of a fun of a project.”
With files from Paul Karchut, Monty Kruger and a Calgary Eyeopener.
Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-grain-elevator-wood-home-1.4508957?cmp=rss