It may be every ten-year-old boy’s dream to smash a wrecking ball into a house and watch it all break and splinter into rubble, but homeowners can get more satisfaction and savings by deconstructing rather than demolishing their homes.

After a while, buildings age and many will eventually need to be taken apart and rebuilt. Traditionally they’re demolished, and all the materials are dumped into landfills. Today there is a more earth-friendly method: the U.S. government will give tax incentives for homeowners that choose to have their houses taken apart and recycle any valuable materials.

The Deconstruction and Reuse Network, a non-profit organization, helps people to appraise and deconstruct their homes. The materials are donated to other non-profit organizations that build homes for others, such as Habitat for Humanity in southern California, and Familia Corazon in Mexico.

Gerald Long, spokesman for the organization at the West Coast Green Conference in San Francisco, said that they are also willing to work with other organizations or green architects and builders.

Long said certain old building materials, especially the lumber, can be very valuable, because they’re rare.

“If you have old lumber from the 1920s, you can’t find that in a hardware store,” he said. But other older materials lose their value, or they’re too rotten and weathered to reuse. “Windows aren’t worth anything in old homes,” he added.

Long said that there are a few drawbacks to deconstructing a house. You can smash and demolish a 2,500 square foot house in a day and have it all cleared off the yard, but deconstruction on the same house might take 15 days. Deconstruction can also cost about double the amount of money up front.

Yet after the tax savings, most owners who deconstruct their homes save more than if they were to demolish them, said Long. The actual dollars saved will depend on the level of preservation and value in the materials, along with the owner’s tax bracket.

Owners interested in deconstructing their old homes can contact the organization to get an initial appraisal and determine the range of value in the materials. Then, the homeowners can consult with their personal tax advisors independently, to see if it makes sense for them to do the deconstruction.