'Seeking Salvage' is a new eight part hour long fly-on-the-wall documentary series featuring Trevor and Lee Jones of Beeston Reclamation in Cheshire and Dale Sumner and Paul Johnson of Ribble Reclamation in Lancashire. The series, which launched this month on the History Channel, is the Channel's most popular programme of the year with 100,000 viewers. It now looks set to be repeated on ITV1 as a six part half-hour long series in a primetime slot next April renamed as 'Trash to Treasure'.
 
The production company, RDF TV (Secret Millionaire, Dickinson's Real Deal, Attack of the Trip Advisors), thought the architectural salvage world merited a series, and contacted forty UK yards of which twenty were screen-tested and two were selected as the mainstays of the series. Other salvage businesses have also been filmed and have smaller roles.
 
Trevor Jones of Beeston Rec said sales had doubled and thousands of visitors had been to its website in the past two weeks. He was filmed at the fire-damaged Peckforton Castle hotel where 400sqm of 140 year old oak flooring was reclaimed, some of which is still for sale at Beeston, but most has been sold to Architectural Salvage Source in Hertfordshire. He was also filmed at the demolition of a silk mill in Congleton where a major client wanted to buy 100,000 reclaimed bricks, although only 28,000 were subsequently saved. A trial dig through the concrete floor turned up nice mill flagstones, and Trevor bargained on 700sqm being available, sadly disabused when it turned out that all the flags had been removed prior to the concrete being laid, apart from the small area beneath the trial dig.
 
Dale Sumner of Ribble Rec could be seen singing "We're in the money" as a load of quality reclaimed York flagstone arrived in his yard from a deal in Lancashire. Salvo Code member Ribble Reclamation has recently been bought by Paul Johnson of NFDC member Bradley Demolition whose daughter Suzanne Johnson said that Dale and Paul were filmed at Gaze's auction, on demolition sites for reclaimed brick, in the yard, and Dale on holiday in Spain looking at Spanish salvage yards. Suzanne said they had many enquiries about salvage seen in the yard on the programme and the TV series was proving a massive boost to business.
 
The series can be seen on Tuesday evenings on the History Channel.