Demountable Buildings – an Up and Down Summary

If you don’t know much about demountable buildings, imagine an industrial sized flat pack without the headache of self-assembly.

The key advantages that come with household flat pack are ease of transport, reduced cost, speed of build (as long as there are words to go with the images!) and flexibility of use – ie you could dismantle the item and store it if you became short of space.

Demountable or temporary industrial buildings tick all the same boxes and in recent years have opened up a whole new world of options to industrial businesses.

Many people refer to relocatable structures a ‘portable’, ‘modular’ or ‘temporary’ – meaning, they can be moved, but not by completely dismantling. Portable cabin type structures for example are usually dropped into place fully assembled and removed by reversing the process.

Because of this the phrase ‘demountable buildings’ isn’t heard much unless you’re within the industry. And it’s no surprise that the people designing and building these structures refer to them as demountable because it’s the best literal description of what they are; take down, fold away and pack up.

More often than not yes, and the factors that create the demountable-ness, are benefits in themselves.

• Easy, fast transport – the building will be packed, loaded and transported in parts. This allows for easy, fast and affordable transport, usually one lorry load.

• Easy, fast installation – demountable buildings need to be lightweight so they are generally engineered using an industrial aluminium frame. This lightweight but durable frame is easier to transport and handle than steel. Typical installations take a week or less as the structures can be anchored down to existing hard surfaces usually negating the need for any pre-prepared foundations or ground works.

• Green – the characteristics of demountable buldings as a whole create something that is green simply by it’s ability to be re-used time after time. In it’s life time, one building could be used by half a dozen different companies for a multitude of applications. Of course the aluminum frame itself boasts highly green credentials being a material that can be recycled indefinitely using minimal energy.

• Ground damage – rarely will a demountable building leave any ground damage once it’s been removed. Generally there will be little evidence of the building’s existence meaning the ground can go back to its previous use or a new one with minimal effort.

• Wear and tear – Demountable or temporary means sectional which means wall panels, roof sections or other components can be easily replaced either because of damage or just general wear and tear.

• Flexible use – if you are multi-sited it would be easy to demount the building from one site and relocate to another for a different use. Alternatively, you could demount the building and store it until it needed to be re-installed and operational again.

• Value – a demountable building will retain its value as no damage is done in the dismantling process. Being engineered with an aluminium frame also means it’s non-corrosive and will never rust. The ability to demount and sell the building on at any time is always going to remain an option.

Surprisingly no.

Although buildings can be hired and removed when no longer needed, many companies choose to buy and use on a permanent basis in line with required structural building regs.

Demountable buildings are usually used for on-site industrial applications when space is needed quickly and for an undetermined length of time, which could be anything from 6 months to 20 years.