Our Story
From a one-truck salvage operation to California's trusted name in reclaimed lumber — built on grit, sustainability, and a refusal to let good wood go to waste.
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A Second Life for Every Board
CA Lumber Recycling began in 2007 when founder Carlos Alvarez watched a perfectly good barn being demolished outside Bakersfield. Hundreds of old-growth Douglas fir timbers — some more than a century old — were loaded into dumpsters headed for the landfill. That moment sparked an idea: what if there was a better way to handle the mountains of usable wood California discards every year?
With a single pickup truck and a rented storage yard in the Inland Empire, Carlos started collecting surplus and salvaged lumber from job sites, demolition crews, and renovation projects. He cleaned, de-nailed, and resold the material to local contractors who appreciated the quality and the price. Word spread quickly. Within two years the operation had outgrown its first yard and moved into a dedicated processing facility.
“Every piece of wood has a story. Our job is to make sure that story doesn’t end in a landfill.” — Carlos Alvarez, Founder
Growing with Purpose
Through the 2010s, demand for sustainable building materials surged across California. New state mandates like CALGreen pushed builders to incorporate recycled content, and architects started specifying reclaimed wood for its beauty and environmental credentials. CA Lumber Recycling was positioned perfectly to meet that demand.
We invested in professional re-milling equipment, a fleet of flatbed trucks for statewide pickup and delivery, and hired experienced lumber graders who could sort salvaged material into reliable, construction-grade stock. By 2015 we were processing over a thousand tons of reclaimed wood per year and serving customers from San Diego to Sacramento.
Today, our team includes wood scientists, logistics coordinators, skilled mill operators, and dedicated sales staff who share a single mission: keep good lumber out of the waste stream and put it back to work. We operate from a 40,000-square-foot facility with modern milling, kiln-drying, and finishing capabilities that let us deliver reclaimed wood that meets or exceeds the performance of newly harvested material.
Key Moments in Our Journey
The First Truck
Carlos Alvarez begins collecting salvaged lumber from demolition sites across Southern California with a single pickup truck and a rented storage yard.
First Facility
Growing demand forces a move to a dedicated 8,000 sq ft processing warehouse in the Inland Empire. The team grows to five full-time employees.
Statewide Operations
We launch a fleet of flatbed trucks and begin offering pickup and delivery service across all of California, from the Oregon border to the Mexican border.
1,000 Tons Diverted
CA Lumber Recycling surpasses 1,000 tons of lumber diverted from landfills in a single year. The milestone earns recognition from the California Department of Resources.
Modern Milling Upgrade
A major investment in CNC milling, kiln-drying chambers, and professional grading equipment transforms our capabilities. We can now deliver finish-grade reclaimed stock.
New Headquarters
We move into our current 40,000 sq ft facility featuring modern processing lines, expanded storage, and a customer showroom for reclaimed wood products.
10,000 Tons Milestone
Cumulative lumber diverted from landfills passes the 10,000-ton mark. That is the equivalent of saving roughly 170,000 mature trees from being harvested.
Carbon-Neutral Pledge
We commit to carbon-neutral operations by 2030, investing in electric fleet vehicles, solar-powered facilities, and verified carbon offset partnerships.
People Who Love Wood
What started as a one-person operation now employs more than 30 people across California. Our team includes certified lumber graders, experienced mill operators, CDL-licensed truck drivers, and sales professionals who can help you find the right reclaimed material for any project.
We are proud that many of our team members have been with us for over a decade. Low turnover means deep expertise — our graders can identify wood species, age, and structural integrity by sight and feel. That kind of institutional knowledge is impossible to rush and invaluable to our customers.
Lumber Graders & Wood Scientists
Certified professionals who evaluate every piece of salvaged wood for species, structural integrity, moisture content, and aesthetic quality.
Mill Operators & Craftspeople
Skilled technicians who operate our CNC mills, planers, and finishing equipment to transform rough salvage into premium building materials.
Logistics & Transportation
CDL-licensed drivers and dispatchers who coordinate statewide pickup and delivery, ensuring lumber moves efficiently from source to customer.
Rooted in Carpinteria
In 2021 we relocated our main operations to a 40,000-square-foot facility on Rose Lane in Carpinteria, just south of Santa Barbara along California's central coast. The location was deliberate. Carpinteria sits at a logistical sweet spot — close enough to Los Angeles to capture the largest stream of salvage material in the state, yet north enough to access agricultural and ranch deconstruction projects throughout the Central Valley and Central Coast.
Our headquarters includes a covered processing pavilion, an outdoor sorting and storage yard, two kiln-drying chambers, a custom milling shop, and a public showroom where customers can walk among finished reclaimed stock, assess color and grain variations, and place orders in person. We are open to contractors, designers, and homeowners by appointment Monday through Saturday.
Beyond the main facility, we operate satellite collection yards in Northern California and the Inland Empire that feed material south for processing. This hub-and-spoke model lets us cover the entire state efficiently while concentrating our expensive equipment and skilled labor in one location.
Processing Capacity
Our facility can de-nail, clean, dry, and re-mill more than 1,500 tons of reclaimed lumber per year — and that capacity is growing. New equipment investments planned for 2026 will push annual throughput beyond 2,000 tons.
Showroom Inventory
The Carpinteria showroom holds approximately 60,000 board feet of ready-to-ship inventory across roughly two dozen species and grades. Walk in and you can see, touch, and select the actual wood that will go into your project.
Logistics Hub
A fleet of flatbed and box trucks operates from our Carpinteria yard, covering routes across all 58 California counties. Same-week delivery is standard for most metro areas, with priority service available for time-sensitive projects.
Why Reclaiming Lumber Made Sense
When Carlos started the company, the conventional wisdom in California construction was that demolition wood was disposable. Crews loaded dumpsters, dumpsters went to transfer stations, and the wood was buried, burned, or ground for low-value mulch. The economics seemed straightforward: it was cheaper to dump than to sort.
But that math was changing. Tipping fees at California landfills were rising steadily as the state tightened diversion mandates. Old-growth lumber was becoming harder to source from sustainable forestry, pushing prices up for high-quality dimensional stock. And a new generation of architects and homeowners was actively seeking out materials with environmental credibility and visual character. The opportunity was sitting in plain sight — it just needed someone willing to do the patient, dirty work of recovering it properly.
The first year was rough. Carlos paid for a one-ton flatbed trailer with a line of credit, hand-pulled nails until his arms ached, and slept in his truck on long pickup runs. But the model worked. Builders who tried his reclaimed Douglas fir came back for more, then started recommending him to other contractors. Within eighteen months, the operation was profitable enough to hire a second pair of hands. Within four years it had outgrown its original yard and needed real warehousing.
Founding insight: The economics of lumber recycling do not work at small scale. They only work when you can collect, process, and redistribute material in volume — and when you can charge a premium for quality and provenance that virgin lumber cannot offer.
Partners, Suppliers, and Allies
No salvage business operates alone. Our growth has been driven by long-term partnerships with the people who feed material into our system and the builders who put it back to work.
Demolition Contractors
We work with more than 80 demolition and deconstruction contractors across California who call us before they call the dump. These relationships, some going back more than a decade, are the backbone of our supply chain. We provide tip-fee savings, quick scheduling, and clean pickup — they give us first access to the best material.
Architects and Designers
Specifying reclaimed lumber on a commercial project requires careful coordination — the architect needs confidence in supply, the contractor needs documentation, and the client needs to see actual samples. We have built ongoing relationships with design firms across the state and supply samples, lead-time estimates, and impact documentation on demand.
General Contractors
Hundreds of general contractors across California use us as their go-to source for reclaimed material. Many have standing orders for ongoing projects — restaurant chains, multi-unit residential developments, and commercial buildouts that need consistent reclaimed product over many months.
Habitat for Humanity
We have donated thousands of board feet of usable framing lumber, sheathing, and trim to Habitat for Humanity affiliates throughout California. Material that does not meet our commercial grade thresholds finds a second life building affordable homes for families in need.
Municipal Waste Programs
Several California cities and counties partner with us to divert wood from their construction and demolition waste streams. We provide scheduled pickup, processing, and reporting — helping local governments meet their CalRecycle diversion targets while keeping good material out of landfills.
Trades Schools and Apprenticeships
We donate material to carpentry training programs, community college trades schools, and apprenticeship initiatives across the state. Reclaimed lumber is the perfect teaching material — affordable enough to practice on, forgiving enough for beginners, and beautiful enough to inspire pride in finished work.
Our Story in Numbers
10,500+ Tons Diverted
Cumulative lumber diverted from California landfills since our founding in 2007. That weight is equivalent to nearly 7,000 mid-size passenger cars.
178,000 Trees Saved
Estimated number of newly harvested trees avoided through our reclaimed lumber sales — using industry-standard conversion of board-foot demand to standing tree equivalents.
6,800+ Projects Supplied
Documented projects across California where our reclaimed lumber has been installed — from single-family homes to large commercial buildouts and public works installations.
How We Work Together
CA Lumber Recycling is, at its core, a craft business. Most of our work cannot be automated. A skilled grader can identify the difference between old-growth and second-growth Douglas fir at a glance. A seasoned mill operator knows how to read a board for hidden nail damage before sending it through the planer. A driver who has been with us for ten years knows which Bay Area demolition crews can be trusted to set aside premium material before the bulldozers move in.
We hire for craft, train for the rest, and keep people for the long haul. Our team includes second- and third-generation woodworkers, retired carpenters who came back for a final career chapter, and young apprentices we have trained from the ground up. The mix of experience and fresh energy is what keeps our quality consistent year after year.
Safety First
Working with reclaimed material involves real risks — embedded fasteners, old finishes, unstable structures during deconstruction. Every team member receives ongoing safety training, and we maintain an active safety committee that meets monthly to review incidents and improve procedures.
Continuous Learning
The lumber recycling industry is evolving rapidly. We send team members to industry conferences, fund certifications in lumber grading and deconstruction, and maintain a small reference library of wood science and structural engineering texts.
Fair Wages and Benefits
Every full-time employee receives health insurance, paid time off, and a retirement plan match. Wages are above the industry average for comparable roles, and we share annual profit bonuses with the entire team when the business performs well.
Local Hiring
We hire from the communities where we operate. Most of our Carpinteria team lives within 20 miles of the facility. Drivers and yard collection staff are based in the regions they serve, which keeps fuel costs down and supports local economies.
Salvage Projects We'll Never Forget
In nearly two decades of reclaiming lumber, a handful of projects stand out for the quality of the wood, the difficulty of the work, or the stories behind the buildings.
The Bakersfield Barn
The barn that started it all. Built in 1908 from old-growth Douglas fir hauled in by horse from the Sierra Nevada, this structure produced more than 12,000 board feet of premium 6x6 and 8x8 timbers. Carlos still has a section of one beam mounted in the showroom as a reminder of where the business began.
The Sonoma Wine Cave Beams
A historic Sonoma County winery scheduled for seismic retrofit asked us to recover the massive redwood beams that had supported their wine cave ceiling since 1894. We carefully removed each beam, photographed and documented the markings, and resold them to a custom home builder in Marin who used them in a wine country estate.
The LA Pickle Factory
An old industrial building in Vernon yielded thousands of board feet of exceptional Southern Yellow Pine, originally used for vat construction and structural framing. The wood, soaked in brine for decades, had a rich amber color and remarkable resistance to decay. Most of it ended up in a Hollywood restaurant buildout.
The Sierra Mining Cabin
A collapsed Gold Rush-era mining cabin near Auburn produced some of the most weathered, character-rich material we have ever processed. Hand-hewn sugar pine logs with adze marks still visible became feature beams in a custom Tahoe vacation home, where they now span a great room.
The Long Beach Naval Crates
During a port redevelopment in Long Beach, we recovered hundreds of WWII naval shipping crates made of remarkable old-growth white oak. The wood was milled into wide-plank flooring for a series of upscale residences — each board still bearing faint stenciled markings from its naval origin.
The Carpinteria Pier
When sections of the historic Carpinteria pier needed replacement, we received the salvaged Douglas fir pilings and decking. Saturated with marine character — barnacles, salt patina, and bleached tones — the wood is now installed in a beachfront restaurant just blocks from where it spent its first century.
Where We Go From Here
Our roadmap for the next decade focuses on three things: scaling up processing capacity, deepening our supply network, and proving that reclaimed lumber can be a default construction material rather than a specialty product. We are investing in better grading technology, expanding our fleet, and building stronger ties with municipal waste programs.
We are also pursuing carbon-neutral certification by 2030 — a commitment that will require electrifying our entire fleet, expanding our solar array, transitioning processing equipment to renewable power, and offsetting any remaining emissions through verified California-based sequestration projects. The pledge is detailed in our sustainability page, and we publish progress updates annually.
Most importantly, we plan to keep doing what we have always done: showing up at job sites, treating customers and suppliers fairly, training the next generation of skilled workers, and refusing to let good wood end up in a landfill. The business has changed dramatically since 2007, but the core idea remains exactly the same.
“We are not just selling lumber. We are proving that the construction industry can do the right thing and still build a thriving business. Every ton we divert is evidence that the model works.” — Carlos Alvarez, Founder
Want to Be Part of the Story?
Whether you are a builder looking for reclaimed lumber or a demolition crew with surplus wood, we would love to work with you.