Sort it: salvage yards aren’t always a byword for bargains

House renovations and extensions don’t come cheap. Nor does labour. And the materials and final fit-out furnishings certainly aren’t a steal either. However, there are savings to be made by shopping around between suppliers. It’s easy to find something 20 per cent cheaper from one place to the next.

I recently found some polished concrete paving for €1,710, having been quoted more than €2,100 for the identical product from two different suppliers.

So what about salvage yards? Are they the natural home of the true bargain hunter? The TK Maxx of architectural salvage?

Im not so sure. Like in TK Maxx, there is a lot of junk. In some yards, it’s mainly junk.

In yards where the offering is more quality than junk, you could spend an interesting hour walking around, stumbling on some incredible items. Stone and granite pieces often make up a lot of the content of salvage yards, old pub furniture and memorabilia are also quite plentiful. Internal doors, sanitary ware, bricks, cast-iron rain water goods, radiators and roof tiles are the other major draws.

And you may well find your cast iron slipper bath tub, or your Victorian column radiators, but at what price? From my experience, they won’t be cheap. After many an hour bustling around salvage yards, I have come across several items that I would love in my home or garden, but left empty-handed because of the price. There are now lots of modern reproductions of these sought-after period items. Admittedly it’s hard, if not impossible, to recreate the character of a 200-year-old oak mantle, but there are good modern products replicating the slipper bath or column radiator that don’t look too shabby.

What you have to bear in mind if you are thinking about acquiring an original period piece from a salvage yard, is the amount of time and money that is going to go into reconditioning your purchase to bring it back to its former glory.

My wife recently bought a cast iron claw-foot bath from a salvage yard. We were keen to fit out our bathroom in the Victorian style: high-level cistern, claw foot bath, etc.

After making the purchase she then set about sanding down the outside to its original cast iron. She then repainted it before getting in a specialist to re-enamel it. The result ended up costing the same, if not more, than its modern day equivalent. Now for some, this is completely worth it. The satisfaction gained in restoring an item to its former glory is immense, so much so that the appeal may lie in the project more than the result. Once restored, a piece will always outshine a modern replica, and, crucially, it will have a story attached. It will have a presence.

Be warned though, no builder or tradesman wil be jumping up and down with joy when they see you coming bearing materials from a salvage yard. Be it a carpenter assessing the floorboards you now expect him to lay tight and clean, or the plumber who knows it’s going to take him 40 minutes to get the old rusty waste out of that retrieved wash hand basin, or the countless time spent running around fixing leaks from old salvaged radiators. Even if it doesn’t require a complete overhaul, salvaged items almost always need a bit of prep before they can be fitted, thus taking longer.

I recently had to source imperial-sized redbrick. Once I located it, I was told at the yard that I couldn’t select the ones I wanted, but I had to just take the the pallet as they came. When I later got back to the job and unloaded the pallet, about 30 per cent of the bricks were chipped or somehow defaced, rendering them unuseable, and making the good ones very expensive. Buyer, be warned.

In my experience, salvage yards rarely yield a bargain, but they’re often the treasure chest where you discover that item you couldn’t find for love nor money.