Removing staging from a huge greenhouse

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Two major issues I'm trying to help someone I know with.

Firstly, the framing below is stainless steel and concreted into the ground.

Secondly, the plastic stuff you see on top of the frame is fitted together (what looks like solvent welded).

What would be the easiest way to separate the sections? I was thinking a stanley knife with a few replacement blades to score a line? Trouble is it's so old and brittle now.

Easiest way to remove the frames from the ground so that they can be re-used?
 
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If the legs are cast in, you've only 2 options, Kango or angle grinder.

I suppose uou could drill down the side of a leg and see if it comes free. A kango could create big cracks across the slab, so best to go gentle.

Or cut the legs and have staging for short people
 
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Angle grinder with a diamond disc will slit the plastic really nicely with minimal damage (apart from the cut of course). And I'd agree with above, that rust on the legs doesn't look like stainless to me
 
There could be a plate at the bottom of the uprights so may involve digging out more concrete .
You could drill through the concrete as close as possible to the uprights to see if you hit metal and if you do, keep drilling outwards till you miss it.
If it is SS and worth keeping in tact, disc cut a square around to give an edge to chisel to.
litl
 
What about the dust kicked up from using a grinder on the plastic? Plastic may be as old as the 80s/90s, chance of asbestos at all?

Thanks for tips on the metal, if people are calling it as galvanished metal then I'll take it as that as I don't know any better.

This is going to be a monster job to sort on my own.

To add difficulty do you guys see the pipes at the back? (red and blue)/ They are greenhouse heat pipes, and run underneath the staging. Bit of a nightmare.
 
Hard to tell from the pic but your plastic looks rather like fibreglass (well it is the right sort of colour for very old fibreglass anyway, can't see any fibres). Not aware of any resin products having asbestos in them, standard facemask and goggles will do for the plastic dust. If you're concerned then snap a chunk off (killaspray while you cut/snap, PVA coat on the cut edge) and get it analysed. The metalwork- old stainless would go grey but not rusty. Galvanised will rust wherever the plating has been damaged (if you clean a piece up you can often see a crystalline pattern in the coating)

Pipes- you keeping the heating system or junking it? If they have to stay then you need to work out where they are before you start chopping- they're probably supported at intervals by that framework as well. If they're going then 80s insulation shouldn't be assie based but check.....
 
Hard to tell from the pic but your plastic looks rather like fibreglass (well it is the right sort of colour for very old fibreglass anyway, can't see any fibres). Not aware of any resin products having asbestos in them, standard facemask and goggles will do for the plastic dust. If you're concerned then snap a chunk off (killaspray while you cut/snap, PVA coat on the cut edge) and get it analysed. The metalwork- old stainless would go grey but not rusty. Galvanised will rust wherever the plating has been damaged (if you clean a piece up you can often see a crystalline pattern in the coating)

Pipes- you keeping the heating system or junking it? If they have to stay then you need to work out where they are before you start chopping- they're probably supported at intervals by that framework as well. If they're going then 80s insulation shouldn't be assie based but check.....

Unsure of the exact arrangements but as far as I know these huge greenhouses are being scrapped as they've fallen into a state of disrepair and there's no longer any need for the property owners to grow plants on any kind of scale.

I've got a draper half-mask for this job. If you say it's fibreglass I'll take it as that. Doubt very much they will want to pay to have it analysed, and the time involved. Might be worth me mentioning though.

I don't intend to touch the pipes at all, it's just having to tease the framework away without much problem that is worrying me.

So far checklist looks something like this:

  • facemask
  • mini or heavy duty grinder with diamond blade
  • gloves
  • medium breaker with flat and pointed chisels
  • a lot of elbow grease and swearing
  • screwdriver

I'll get some more pics this week.
 
You'll want a normal cutting blade for the grinder to cut the metal.
Alternative is a reciprocating saw with a blade for cutting metal.

I'd not worry about dealing with the concrete, just chop off the legs as low to the ground as possible, a grinder would make that pretty easy.
 
Ok, so I've managed to cut through some of the plastic with a hack saw blade, it was brittle enough, and was quite an easy cut.

Developing problems:

What are the fittings below?

staging2.jpg


They appear to be punched inwards to hold the galvanished metal in place? I need to remove them without destroying them to eventually re-use.

Secondly, were will I find more of these feet?

feet1.jpg


The metal is 25mm2.

Trying to keep this on a budget. So we've thought long and hard and decided to chop the frames at the base with a hacksaw and then pop feet onto the end.
 

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