Surprisingly little of the homes built in the postwar Killarney bungalow era of the 50's and into the 60's and 70's is worth salvaging today.  I removed all the old growth 12 inch fir planks off a recent house I was prepping for demo and today I salavaged the copper water lines that were conveniently exposed in the basement ceiling.  I have a new formula for the value of these older homes.  The house structure is worth a negative number, to arrive at that figure, subtract what you can take out of it in salvage, subtract the asbestos related fees, and then the demolition.  By the end of that equation the house is likely worth a negative $15k.  That suggests the property would be worth more vacant than with the house still standing. 

68 pounds of copper earned me $166.   

That was a reasonable amount of labour to collect $166 of copper pipe.  Perhaps about three hours total plus drop off at the scrap metal shop.  Unfortunately the copper is all I have determined to be worth saving, the rest of the house is nasty. The house will go to the dump and be very expensive to dispose. Even worse will be if we find asbestos in the drywall and flooring.   

Collecting the valuable copper pipe was the good news, likely the demolition and asbestos fees will be an additional $10k, and possibly a lot more.  Next time I buy a house I'd like the seller to take it with them and just leave me the land!