Rancher saved from wrecking ball becomes energy-efficient

Wally Dorsey saved a house from the wrecking ball, moved it 14 miles, restored it and made it energy-efficient.

The house wasn't historic or in any way unusual -- just a plain brick and vinyl rancher like thousands of others built in the 1960s and'70s.

But it fit right into its new location, at 4400 Waldor Drive, in a neighborhood of other ranchers off Walmsley Boulevard in South Richmond. A huge pin oak in the front yard looks as if it was part of the landscaping.

The house would have wound up in the dump along with all the sheet rock, studs, copper wiring and vinyl siding, Dorsey said. And it would have taken three to seven trees to build a new one, he said.

"A substantial amount of energy is used to build a house for the first time."

A lot goes into building one for the second time, too, as Dorsey learned. But one would never know that from looking at it now.

"It had been empty for I don't know how long, so the interior was rough, but it was in decent structural shape," said Randy Tritt, a structural engineer with Balzer and Associates Inc., an architectural and engineering company in Midlothian.

He inspected the house before and after the move to ensure the new foundation and attachments were to code.

With the house completed and on the market for $179,950, getting to this point was nearly a six-month process -- long enough to build a 1,560-square-foot home from scratch.

"I knew it would be a monumental task, but it was definitely doable," Dorsey said. "We have north of $100,000 by a fair margin in the house and $25,000 just to move it."

A contractor tried to reattach the roof, putting it on and off the house three times at the new location, but he could not match up the trusses. He had not numbered the trusses, so he didn't know which ones went where.

"It was a little scary," especially when all the sheet rock in the ceiling collapsed, Dorsey said. A second contractor was called in to clean up the mess and rebuild.

At one point, when the roof was cut off and the structure was draped in a tarp, the city slapped a "stop work" order on the project.

The city apparently was expecting a modular house, not a whole house, to be moved down the road, under bridges and along state Route 288. No one from the city could be reached for comment.

Moving a house is an odd concept for most people, Dorsey said. Yet, he lives in a house -- a former railroad depot in the Moseley area of Chesterfield County -- that was moved 500 feet in 1921 using logs, chains and mules.

This project was about salvaging as much as possible, Dorsey said. "We recycled the whole house."

Dorsey said he was so taken with the concept of renovating and recycling a house, the word "recyclovate" popped into his head one day. He's in the process of making the word a trademark.

The original brick foundation was used by neighbors living near the old location to build patios. New roof trusses were used for the house, but the old ones were used to build a garage. Original pine cabinets and hardwood floors covered for decades with carpeting were refinished.

A handwritten sign asks visitors to take off their shoes before entering. "I wanted to do something I would be happy and proud to live in," Dorsey said.

The experiment started with a rental house owned by Dorsey's business partner. The house sat on property big enough for three additional lots.

Dorsey looked at putting up modular homes but could find none that blended with the neighborhood. "Or they were too doggone expensive," he said.

He had considered new construction, but that wasn't appealing.

Cruising down Hull Street Road one day, he spotted three ranchers along the side of the road with a "development pending" sign. The houses were a match for the South Richmond neighborhood.

Originally built in a cluster for a family, they will stay together in their new location.

Dorsey will move the second house in about 30 days, wiser and undeterred from his first experience.

Contact Carol Hazard at (804) 775-8023 or .