This carpenter works with recycled wood

In this shared garden in Yvelines, there is a rather unusual construction site. The new hall of the Ellsa association is built entirely with recycled wood, recovered from demolition sites in the region. At the helm is Jesse, the “flying carpenter”, his professional nickname. For the past five years, he has made a specialty of working with this imperfect wood, out of ecological conviction. “The most important thing is to protect the forest by avoiding cutting down trees.”explains the 48-year-old.

That morning, he checked the assembly of a truss, a part of the future framework, with the volunteers of this participatory project. The latter, who came to lend a hand to a local project, were won over by the approach. “I would find it useless to destroy these pieces of wood which can be reused.”says Maggy, a 40-year-old insurance agent. “It is important to protect forests to prevent ecosystems from being destroyed and living species from disappearing.”adds Augustin, 16 years old.

This old wood, sometimes centuries old, also has the advantage of often being less expensive, sometimes even free. It is also very solid, because it is very dry. But working it requires mastering old techniques, which are no longer taught in traditional training courses. So, Jesse regularly runs workshops to present forgotten methods, such as pricking or lineage.

Among the audience, there are even CAP carpentry students, like Florent, 38. He is there to broaden his skills and learn how to work with all types of wood. “Recovering wood as raw as possible and being able to rework it as raw as possible, I find that really interesting, it allows you to be more independent from this whole industrial system”he justifies. Despite these advantages, recycled wood remains little used. It is not always easy to obtain and it takes more time to work it.