A Bay Area decommission runs on a ninety day clock: read the restoration clause and inventory the floor in the first thirty days, list the lot and line up donation partners in the second thirty, and run buyer pickups zone by zone in the last thirty with recycling and disposal at the end. Sixty days is workable and thirty is expensive, because buyers need time to inspect, commit, and schedule a pickup.
The difference between a decommission that costs money and one that returns money is almost never the crew. It is the calendar. Resale needs time. Donation partners need lead time. Buildings need paperwork. Compress all of that into three weeks and the only vendor who can help you is the one with a dumpster.
This is the sequence we run in the Bay Area. Steal it.
90 days out: know what you owe and what you have
- Pull the lease Find the restoration and surrender clauses. Broom clean, back to shell, and remove all tenant improvements are three very different budgets.
- Inventory in place Manufacturer, model, finish, quantity, condition, by zone. Do it while people are still sitting in the chairs.
- Photograph installed Furniture standing in a real office sells for more than furniture stacked on a pallet. Take the photos now.
- Flag the specials Anything leased, anything under an active warranty, anything with a buyback clause. These get pulled out of the pile before anyone quotes on it.
60 days out: sort into four piles on paper
- Resale Commercial-grade seating, height-adjustable bases, benching, matched systems, recent conference and lounge. This is where the recovery lives.
- Donation Serviceable but low resale value. Storage, filing, older casegoods. Saves you the tipping fee and produces a receipt.
- Recycling Broken, obsolete, or contaminated. Steel and aluminum still have a stream. Route it there, not to the transfer station.
- Disposal Whatever survives the first three. It should be a short list. If it is a long list, the sort was lazy.
30 days out: lock the logistics
- Book the freight elevator In San Francisco and San Jose towers this is the real constraint. In the East Bay it is usually easier. Either way, book it before the crew.
- File the certificates of insurance Property managers will not let a crew on the floor without them, and they take longer to process than anyone plans for.
- Confirm buyer pickups Each confirmed pickup is a zone that empties itself. Schedule these first.
- Set the data and IT boundary Anything with a drive, a lock, or a label gets handled separately. Furniture crews are not a chain of custody.
10 days out: execute and document
- Run pickups zone by zone Empty spaces are easier to protect, easier to clean, and easier to hand back.
- Capture weights as they leave Diverted tonnage recorded at the truck is defensible. Diverted tonnage estimated at the end of the month is not.
- Walk the space with the property manager Before the crew leaves, not after. Punch items are cheap while the truck is still in the loading dock.
- Package the report Weight diverted, items rehomed, CO2e avoided, donation receipts. Your sustainability team will ask for this in eleven months and nobody will remember.
What each skipped step costs
| Skipped step | What it costs you |
|---|---|
| No lease review | Scope surprises at handback, often the largest single overrun |
| No inventory | Everything gets quoted as disposal, because nobody can prove otherwise |
| No resale window | The entire recovery, which is the only line that offsets the cost |
| No documentation | A diversion claim you cannot defend and a reporting gap at year end |
A little bit of forethought can end a lot of waste. That is not a slogan we picked for the rhyme. Start the clock with a decommission intake, or read how it plays out in San Francisco.