CHH Futurebuild fertile ground for LVL construction
Elf Farm in Mulgrave NSW is a mushroom substrate plant. A factory for growing the soil that mushrooms grow in.
Rob Tolson of Elf Farm Supplies has been in the business for 45 years so if anyone knows about mushroom compost it's Rob. That's
why when Elf Farm recently embarked on an equipment upgrade Rob was keen to consider new options for construction. Previously
sheds were built from steel and Rob was faced with problems of corrosion and high maintenance costs.
For fertilizer production a large factory space is required and although steel construction is readily available, corrosion was
inevitable due to the conditions inside the factory. "Steel has a short life span," says Rob, "because of the high ammonia
conditions the steel corrodes. We were putting steel roofs on every five years and the whole structure is gone
within twenty (years)."
Tolson had seen timber used overseas in this same environment. In fact, timber once was the material of choice for purlins
and girts, if not the main trusses and Tolson felt it was the way to go, but with the advantages of modern engineered timber
rather than the old hardwood. In fact, Rob had done his homework and knew that Timberbuilt specialised in large span LVL
structures and had previously designed, prefabricated and supplied an LVL portal frame system for another mushroom composting
facility near Mildura in Victoria. This building, clear spanning 30 metres and completed some years ago, is known to be
performing well in the difficult environment.
Timberbuilt engineer, Cameron Rodger, explains that his company has done many factory and warehouse buildings using LVL instead
of steel, because of the corrosion hazard for steel presented by certain industrial processes.
"The choice of LVL and other glued engineered products such as plywood and
I-beams, for buildings with highly corrosive conditions such as fertilizer handling,
is obvious because these wood based materials are largely unaffected by the acidic (and alkaline) conditions," he says, "Hyspan
and Hybeam manufactured by futurebuild are perfect for these kind of large span structural applications because of their
uniformity, structural reliability, high strength and stiffness and the availability of sections up to 1200mm wide and the very
long lengths required." The Elf Farm building is 27.9 metres wide, with a seven degree pitch which means the rafters needed to
be more than 14 metres long.
According to Tolson, to his surprise, the fully prefabricated LVL structure went up
as quickly as steel, and his builders, used to erecting factories from steel, had no difficulties adapting to the assembly of
the LVL system.
Tolson predicts the new Hyspan shed will have a far longer life span without the ongoing maintenance problems of steel. He
has clearly been won over as Elf Farm is now building a second larger factory, 30 x 114 metres, using another Hyspan portal
frame system from Timberbuilt.
For further information contact:
CHH Futurebuild
phone: +61 3 9258 7600
fax: +61 3 9258 7629
web: www.chhfuturebuild.com
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