About House Relocation
Rebuilding process
All vintage Japanese houses will be arranged on the assumption that they will be relocated. Once the house to be relocated is determined, we will calculate the cost and schedule of dismantling the house, surveying, chiseling to match new plans, and transporting the materials of the house.
On-site rebuilding
We liaise with a design company, a construction company and a local carpentry team when rebuilding vintage Japanese houses.
Depending on the situation, we have the option of dispatching carpenters from our team in Hida for the rebuilding process.
Estimated cost of rebuilding
Average cost for a house with building area of 280–400m2
- Cost of purchasing parts and materials
- 3,500,000 JPY
- Dismantling, measuring, transporting, numbering, land clearing, etc
- 8,500,000 JPY
- Repairing materials, chiseling
- 4,000,000 JPY
- Shipping
- 2,200,000 JPY
- – Costs vary depending on the condition of the structure and distance to the shipping destination.
- – The parts and materials include mainly structural components such as pillars and beams as well as reusable items such as floorboards and sliding doors.
- – New items that need to be replaced, such as foundations, baseboards, rafters, etc., must be arranged at the new site of relocation.
For sustainability
M’s rebuilding and conversion work is based on the premise that deteriorated housing parts are repaired and reused as much as possible using Hida’s excellent carpentry skills. Unlike new construction materials used today, most of the wood we ship is reused and fixed through a reclamation process called kizami naoshi, “chiseling.”
In the past, our ancestors cut down trees from the mountains, processed the wood into pillars, beams and floorboards, and built houses. Over time, what were once just private houses are now called “vintage Japanese houses” that have a long, valuable history.
Some of the old wood has a dark gloss from years of being smoked by a hearth or kitchen, polished with rice bran and wiped with water again and again. It is extremely rare and valuable, as it cannot simply be purchased today. Our goal is to save these kinds of precious materials from being burned as industrial waste and to send them out into the world again with the use of modern technology.
After dismantling a house, a qualified carpenter will judge each different piece of old wood and process it into materials suitable for the next location to create a dream structure that will last the next 100 years.
