Business specializes in deconstruction

By TOM LOTSHAWThe Daily Inter Lake

A  steel vault on a concrete pad was about all that remained Tuesday of the former Park Side Federal Credit Union building at Whitefish’s Depot Park.

Flathead Recon had carefully picked apart and hauled away the rest of the building and most of its asphalt parking lot.

The bank vault, encased in thick concrete, was a little too heavy to be lifted up by straps with the company’s crane.

In the end, it was one of just a handful of things that could not be salvaged from the building for later reuse, said Dave Fischlowitz, one of three partners doing business as Flathead Recon.

“We had to beat the concrete off and in that process the integrity of the vault was lost. The result was us recycling the metal,” Fischlowitz said.

That was not the preferred outcome.

But it was a reasonably acceptable one for the deconstruction and site cleanup business that aims to keep reusable items and building materials out of the ever-growing Flathead County Landfill.

Launched about a year ago, Flathead Recon is a joint venture between Fischlowitz, Brandon Bugge and Mary Ann Birchfield.

Tearing down the credit union structure was their first municipal job.

Cabinets, light fixtures and wiring were removed and taken to Flathead Recon’s 7-acre collection and sorting yard in Columbia Falls.

So were the roof shingles and the plywood sheathing and trusses underneath. The building’s walls were cut out in eight-foot sections.

Deconstruction takes longer than demolition. In this case, the job took 10 or 12 days compared to one or two, Fischlowitz said.

It means taking a building apart nearly as deliberately as it was built in an effort to save anything that can be reused.

More than 90 percent of the Park Side building was salvaged, keeping tens of thousands of pounds of materials out of the landfill, Fischlowitz said.

“We’re going to be able to repurpose the building [basically] as it was in its original configuration. It would make someone a great shop, with 12-foot walls and a covered drive-through with two stalls.”

BUGGE, OF Bugge’s Construction Cleanup, came up with the idea to start Flathead Recon. He approached Fischlowitz and Birchfield, who are partners in FischWorks, a green building and home design center in Whitefish.

“He wanted to expand his construction cleanup business into a full-on collection and sorting yard,” Fischlowitz said.

That collection yard materialized in Columbia Falls as the three partners started taking on jobs as Flathead Recon.

Last summer, they were hired to clean up a historic 160-acre farm between Whitefish and Columbia Falls. There they carefully dismantled nearly a dozen log structures that dated back to the 1890s.

“We got all kinds of really rich, historical ranch stuff and all the materials from those buildings,” Fischlowitz said.

IN MARCH, Fischlowitz Bugge and Birchfield opened Flathead Recon Repeat Store, a retail shop at 184 Nucleus Ave. in Columbia Falls.

The store is just a couple of minutes’ drive from the collection and sorting yard.

Open Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, the store offers practical secondhand building materials for people taking on weekend projects, home repairs or larger renovations and additions.

Those materials include windows, doors, sinks, cabinets, light fixtures, fasteners and door knobs, as well as things such as vintage barn wood.

Area contractors can bring in materials left over from their jobs and sell them on consignment. They get a check for an agreed-upon percentage of the sale, Fischlowitz said.

“If they don’t have time to do that, we are surgical deconstructors and can come tear out a kitchen or bathroom if they just want to forfeit the materials. Or maybe they want to tear them out and put them outside so we can come pick them up,” he said.

“We want to be agile with how we interface with the construction community.”

With a bottom line focused not only on profit but also what’s good for the environment and the community, Fischlowitz said Flathead Recon aims to develop a user-friendly infrastructure for people to get rid of unwanted items and let others make use of them.

“It has to be easy for people,” Fischlowitz said.

“We will develop at our store a place where people can drive up alongside the building and see where to drop whatever items they might have.”

The goal is to keep valuable resources out of the landfill.

“Anybody who goes [to the landfill] sees good stuff, old lawn furniture, construction materials. It’s there because there’s not an infrastructure to divert that stuff,” Fischlowitz said.

Fischlowitz, who is 45, said he has watched the landfill grow significantly during his 20 years in the Flathead.

He remembers when it was just a big hole in the ground.

“We’ve seen it grow into a mountain.”

Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.