Deconstruct
Deconstruct orders your colonists to take apart the highlighted object. Only objects with the building tag can be deconstructed; this includes structures, floors, furniture, temperature items, decorative items, and more. This includes minified buildings. You cannot deconstruct most other items such as apparel or weapons, however you can melt down some metal items via a smelter.
The construction skill has a significant effect on the speed of deconstructing an object.[specific stat?] Deconstruction will provide a small amount of experience to the Construction skill.
In most cases, deconstructing a building will give a refund of 50% of the build cost of the item; for odd-numbered values, there is a 50/50 chance to round up or down. (e.g., a wall section, which costs 5 wood or stone blocks to build, will return either 2 or 3 of that building material.) All resulting material is left on the square where the object had been.
Deconstruction can be useful when resources are desperately needed or when structures are no longer required, or when it's simply time to remodel. Existing ruins found on maps can be deconstructed for free building materials.
Constructing an item that can be minified (i.e., uninstalled, moved and then placed again), loading it onto a caravan, and then later deconstructing it again can sometimes be a good way to reduce the "shipping weight" of the final total resources. Compare the weight of the item to the final weight of the items returned. (Urns are a good example of this.)
While it is under the construction work type, deconstruction is given a lower priority within the work task, and therefore usually takes place after all Construction has been completed. Give a pawn specific orders (by right-clicking the target item) for urgent deconstructions.