Daver Steels are nearing completion on a sales order with a difference – this one has been fabricated almost entirely from reclaimed mild steel sections & is the largest job to date of it’s kind that we have worked on.
At the beginning of the project, we received 50 tonnes of free issue mild steel SHS sections that had been previously used for temporary works. The sections were sent away for shot blasting to remove all the old paint, & to have the surfaces cleaned, ready for fabrication. Once back at our works, the next stage of preparation was cutting off all the welded connections & sawing the remaining sections to length. From there on in, for all intents & purposes the job proceeded though the workshop as any other.
entitled “Circular economy & reuse: guidance for designers’ on the reuse of structural steelwork, Robin Jones writes in his preview “It is estimated that, in the UK, between 40 – 80% of steel section demand could be met using steel from deconstructed buildings”.
The environmental advantages of re-using reclaimed structural steel are considerable, compared to the common practice of recycling by re-melting scrap, but for the use of recycled material to become more common place traceability must be guaranteed.
“We (Architects) don’t mark steelwork so that we can find the steel test certificate for it in the future. We don’t produce an accurate record of components in the building so that we know what’s there. If we ’re going to enable future material reuse then it’s a really simple change that we could make now for every project’’ writes Anna Beckett in her Dec 2023 article `What’s stopping us from reusing materials (two years later)? for Building Design. Here at Daver Steels Ltd we look forward to receiving our next recycled steel project!
